


If Roses Are Meant to Be Red

by Indybaggins



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Doomed Relationship, First Kiss, First Time, Friendship/Love, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Personal Favorite, Regret, Sex, early years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-15
Updated: 2007-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:08:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indybaggins/pseuds/Indybaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixteen years after they met, Greg realizes he’s never let himself want anything quite as much as he wanted Ryan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my NaNoWriMo novel for 2006. The story of Greg and Ryan has for me, at its core, always been a love story. Needy, fucked up love, sure, but love none the less. And this is my attempt at telling their story, from the moment Greg met Ryan until the moment he let him go.
> 
>  [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/indybaggins/media/bestgreg2007.jpg.html)  
>   
> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/indybaggins/media/besttear2007.jpg.html)  
>   
> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/indybaggins/media/beststory2007.jpg.html)  
> 

 

 

London is cold and grey in late November, and that might be the exact reason Greg’s chosen to come back here, now, but it isn’t really. London has always been both a comfort and a pain, a living reminder of what was once perfect and then wasn’t much of anything anymore, and it’s exactly that kind of pain he needs, longs for now.

He doesn’t quite remember telling anyone he took the red-eye flight to London, nor does he remember much of the plane ride. He figures that anyone who knows him, though, will know where he is. And those who don’t… well screw them really. He doesn’t care to be responsible for anyone’s pain more than he is for his own.

He gets on the right subway by sheer luck, maybe because some part of him still distantly remembers the numbers and stops, even when most of him doesn’t seem to be there at all. He doesn’t pay, not out of principal but out of habit, embedded into his mind the years where paying for something public was unnecessary, and living on the edge involved gleefully stepping over the metal subway turnstiles as if they were nothing but an obstacle on his rebellious way to liberation.

As the doors open with a heavy hiss, Greg walks in, a little unsteadily. The subway is mostly empty; it’s early still, too early for kids going to school, for businessmen in suits and women with magazines, too early for _people_ , and he’s grateful for that. He sits down in an orange plastic chair next to a window-to-nothing-but-darkness and massages his brow, vaguely wondering where the headache came from all of a sudden, or if it was there before but he just hadn’t felt it yet.

As the minutes tick by, Greg notes a lone man staring into the reflection of the window, their eyes crossing, briefly, before he averts his gaze. He knows what he looks like, wearing a dark, wrinkled suit, a long, black trench coat, no luggage but the wallet in his pocket. He should have changed first, he thinks, but it’s a fleeting thought, easily buried under the constant stream of rumbling noise and small, shaking movements the subway makes on its way under the city.

When he finally gets to his stop, away from the stuffy and artificially lit train, and steps up the slippery and dirty stairs, it feels like a release to suddenly be in the street again, the wind blowing in his face, a light but chilled rain falling down.

As he retraces steps he has long forgotten ever walking, he suddenly and clearly realises (his first real thought after deciding to get on the plane to London, the first thing he allows to be crystal clear and stingingly hurtful) that it’s been sixteen years ago now, _sixteen_ , and he can’t quite grasp how so much time has passed.

Sixteen years since he walked down this exact small street in London, Ryan by his side.

Sixteen years since he dragged Ryan into an ally, that one, or maybe the one next to it, or maybe he’s in the wrong part of the city altogether; he doesn’t quite remember, but he doesn’t care and he sees it again, how they kissed, in the middle of the night after exiting a bar, Ryan tall and gangly and _young_ with a rare shocking _laugh_ , and he himself in all the wrong clothes and the too big glasses and fumbling hands because god he had never been so fucking aroused before and then… then his memory blurs into lots of times, earlier than that particular one, later too.

He remembers being rained on and chilled to the bone before they crashed in Ryan’s hotel room together and had sex until they were too spent to even move and the rain outside didn’t matter anymore. Holding hands while walking over Reagon Street, late at night. Ryan pretending he didn’t care one way or another, but the gleam in his eyes and the streetlight telling different when he whispered half-formed promises into Greg’s ear.

There was an end in there somewhere too, but he doesn’t quite care to let himself linger on that small (and insignificant) memory of Ryan’s eyes and smell and the way his entire being _ached_ after they had sex twice (“break-up sex”, one of them had muttered, and the other had agreed with a low grunt and even more friction because hell it felt like they were cheating on themselves right then), once against the wall with their pants still half-on and once on the dusty carpet, limbs tangling into each other and spit instead of lube so it goddamn hurt but neither of them minded.

As he walks on, over the cold and grey street, he remembers with something akin to fondness that they’d ended it many times, each time more resignedly hurtful than the last. Until… ‘Until now,’ he thinks, and then closes his eyes at the painful stab that memory brings. Until now.

 

\---

 

Even today, Greg can still clearly remember the day he had met Ryan.

He had heard the others talk about the “new guy” from the day Ryan did his first show, Josie with an unexpected high note to her tone when describing him, Mike with a rumbling belly laugh. That alone had warned him that Ryan Stiles was deemed to be both attractive and funny, a great improv talent and womaniser to boot. He hadn’t cared, not at first, but as the rumours had persisted, it had woken something akin to annoyance in him.

When the tapings in New York were announced and Greg saw he was scheduled to do a show with this Ryan, he had been prepared to take in the competition, play alongside with him for the night, and then show him the door afterwards. He didn’t think it was unusually harsh of him, or of any performer for that matter, to think this way. It was routine. He didn’t really know Whose Line was going to be big, not then, but it was more of a break than he could hope for, and he intended to ride it as far it would take him. So he didn’t plan to be blatantly off-putting, or rude. Just better. Better than Ryan.

By 6.30pm, he had downed a couple beers in his dressing room, finding that he always worked better when slightly intoxicated. Nobody seemed to care if he was, not when it came to alcohol anyway. All they cared about was performance, and whatever he needed to do to give him that edge was not only just fine, it was encouraged.

Thirty minutes later, he was dressed by costume, painted and coddled by the girls from make-up, and he had taken up a seat with a direct-line of view to the door, newspaper in hand and mentally racking through all the nonsensical British words he could use tonight, both to get a rise from Clive (who he knew would be outdoing himself with an actual American audience), and hopefully, an acknowledged defeat from the new guy.

He had been so consumed in his search for funny acronyms, insults and comparisons that he didn’t hear the door open. It was when he felt a gust of wind that messed up his paper and heard the sloppy sound of wet, sneaker-clad feet landing on the beige, fluffy carpet that he looked up, doing his best to look as cynical and defensive as humanly possible.

What he saw, though, made him suppress a completely involuntary smile. The man in front of him was absolutely drenched. His dark blonde hair was plastered to his skull, the water running in small streams over his face. His jacket seemed glued to his shoulders, giving him the all-over air of a wet -although terribly lanky and tall- child hovering in the doorway.

Taking some form of pity on the man’s obvious bad luck, Greg glanced over his newspaper, stopped pretending not to have noticed his entry, and asked -voice carefully kept neutral- “Ryan Stiles?”

That is when he realised his mistake. Not embarrassed in the least, Ryan grinned, genuinely, almost as if he had planned to be rained on for the comical effect alone, replied a confident “A very wet one, but yeah” and strode over to shake his hand, his fingers wet and icy cold but his grip pleasant and strong.

“Greg Proops,” Greg, a spare smile on his lips, introduced himself, and Ryan smiled again, still holding his hand, but his eyes flashed to the exposed watch on Greg’s wrist, saying “I have to hurry.”

Greg nodded his approval, and with that, Ryan let go of his hand, and, with a last amused look, one that could have said “wish me well” or maybe “I sure hope someone has some spare clothes around here,” but mainly served to make Greg note the flash of green in the man’s eyes, Ryan walked towards the dressing rooms and out of sight.

Once he was gone, Greg wiped his hand on his pants, coughed once or twice to himself, and then curiously looked at the drop of water that had fallen on his newspaper and was slowly blurring the ink.

So that was Ryan Stiles then…

 

The show they did that night wasn’t one of his best, but certainly qualified as one of the more enjoyable ones. In general, he tended to prefer the British audiences over the American ones (‘they are just that much smarter,’ had he confided to Josie once, who had patriotically agreed), but that night he welcomed every over-rehearsed applause and every single loud and obnoxious laugh that came his way.

Ryan had changed his sodden clothes for a green suit, white shirt and flashy pinkish tie, and while it wasn’t too fashionable it looked good on him nonetheless. He was very thin, Greg noticed, even from where he sat he could see the bones of the man’s wrist and, when he leaned forward, the clear outline of his shoulders and back. He bore it well though; at first sight Ryan was a little gawky, but as soon as he moved he was plain graceful, his long legs carrying him in elegant strides across the stage, his entire body language easily controlled to fit every image, from an old lady to a hawk to a ballet dancer, Ryan effortlessly impersonated it all.

What intrigued him about Ryan was that he didn’t seem to be nervous in the least, during breaks casually smiling up at the audience, sipping his water. It made him feel laid-back and comfortable too, instead of the revved up, hyper-active feeling he tended to get from performing, and at several occasions he found himself startled to suddenly hear Clive’s voice when calling him down to do a game.

Once they got playing together in some games, Ryan proved to be every bit as good as he was rumoured to be, but Greg found that he didn’t mind that fact at all. Where he had taken Ryan as someone who’d egocentrically steal the spotlight, he turned out to be a great team player (‘He comes from Second City,’ Mike told him later when he expressed his surprise on that particular side of Ryan, as if that explained it all) and he was mainly just very, very funny. The audience loved him, and so did Greg, biting back a laugh at more than one occasion.

Ryan was also a very physical actor, freely hugging and touching everyone whenever the scenes seemed to call for it, or even when they didn’t. While walking up the stage, Ryan would modify his steps to match Greg’s, trying to get in sync before the acting even began. While walking back towards their seats, there was Ryan’s quick hand on Greg’s shoulder, his touch reassuring. After a particularly good joke, there was a shared laughter, not just towards the audience, but no, Ryan seemed to play solely for the person standing across from him, Greg had never felt that simple fact radiate from someone so openly as it did from Ryan, and it excited him, in a way.

When the taping ended it was almost too soon, and Greg grudgingly, but strangely still very stress-free, followed the others off the stage.

Before he had even completely closed his dressing room door behind him, Mike was knocking on it, inviting him to go out for drinks. Without having to think about it, he’d voiced his agreement, and after a pause, yelled “don’t forget to invite Ryan!”

A good twenty minutes later, face washed to get rid of the make-up and donned in a much more comfortable shirt and jacket, he could hear the others gather in the hallway, loudly boasting about “showing Clive a good American time”.

He poked his head out and locked eyes with Clive, who threw him a soft suffering smile and told him stoically, “I believe they mean to get me terribly drunk.” Greg laughed, snatched up his cigarettes, and closed the door behind him, only to bump into Ryan, who seemed oddly aware of the fact that he had been talking to Clive, his eyes traveling from one to the other.

Greg, intrigued, aimed a chipper smile at the both of them and said “Let’s go then?”

 

In truth, he didn’t know New York well at all and neither did Clive, Richard or Ryan, so it was Mike and George who lead the way, walking over the wet pavement and avoiding the puddles for a couple blocks before they stumbled (Mike insisted he had intended to lead them there, but Greg had his doubts) on a small, crowed bar.

Taking the lead through the masses, George secured them a booth in the back, and as they filed in, Greg got stuck in the middle, Clive on one side, Ryan on the other. The waiter followed them there, and soon they were all sipping on various drinks, from Mike’s dark German beer to Ryan’s scotch and Greg’s Martini.

The place was fine, although a little too rowdy and busy for his own tastes, Greg thought, and certainly not quite up to Clive’s, Greg realised as he looked at him and saw him smile cynically, cringing at the loud and repellent beat of the music. He was preparing dozens of half-formed comments in his mind, ranging from “too old for this, Clive?” to “want to get out of here and shag?”, all designed to jest, to make the man smile, nothing more, but in the end he thought none of them good enough to actually venture yelling through the noise, and settled for just smiling at Clive with what he hoped was sympathy.

Ryan, on the other side of him, seemed equally uninterested in conversation, and so Greg sat back and let the atmosphere wash over him, half-heartedly commenting when asked a question to his left or right, but mainly just relaxing, letting the high of the evening slowly fade. When he reached for his lighter and cigarettes in his coat pocket, he did so unconsciously, putting one between his lips and lighting it before he had even given it a second thought.

As he inhaled, his eye fell on Ryan again, who seemed to be inhaling right along with him, a look of concentration on his face. Laughing, Greg pulled out the packet again and pushed it in Ryan’s general direction, who took one, looking incredibly grateful, and half-said half-mouthed through the noise “wife wants me to quit…”

Greg, not knowing what had even prompted him to speak, commented in the general direction of Ryan’s now half-empty scotch “Don’t quit what you don’t want to quit man, we all need our poison.” Ryan looked at him at that, sadly, and said “Yeah, I suppose we do…”

Later on, Greg told himself he shouldn’t have felt such weight behind those words. That anyone could have spoken them, and that they didn’t really mean anything anyhow. But the truth was, in that moment, he saw someone in Ryan who possibly understood everything he wasn’t trying to say, and for a fleeting second he knew that feeling was mutual.

He smilingly handed Ryan another cigarette minutes after he had stubbed out his first in the ashtray, and then, in a moment of inspiration, leaned in close and spoke into Ryan’s ear “want to go do that outside?” before motioning Clive to move over so he could get out.

Walking through the bar, he didn’t check to see who was following, just tried to look forceful when maneuvering his way through the crowd. The fast, sickening beat of the too-loud music had given him a nagging headache, and he suddenly really longed for the cold and wet night air.

Upon reaching the fogged-up door, he saw out of the corner of his eye a tall figure behind him, and he smiled a little. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who was sick of the evening… Pushing it open, he was greeted by a gust of cold rain, the wind blowing it into his face. He briefly considered going back, but then looked to his right, a couple doors up the street, and saw a closed store saying “Alicia’s Flowers” with a large covered entryway that looked relatively dry.

Making a dash for it, he felt the rain pouring over his jacket, instantly soaking his hair, neck and back, and as he stepped under the entryway, panting, he turned around, making room for Ryan. Ryan had been right behind him and stepped up as well, huddling closer to the wall to get as far away from the rain as possible.

“That’s the second time today I got rained on,” Ryan noted, his voice light and casual and very close, to the left of Greg’s ear. Greg grinned at the rain, and said “yeah, it’s… New York showers.”

He didn’t pull away as he felt Ryan lean into him a bit, they were in a cramped space after all, and he bumped into Ryan’s side as he looked for his cigarettes, hoping they weren’t as soaked as he suspected they were.

Retrieving his lighter, he tried to light one, and, upon success, also Ryan’s, who seemed to have stayed miraculously dry. They smoked for a few minutes in relative silence, the heavy cascade of the rain so close by drowning out the music undoubtedly still emitting from the bar.

His cigarette gone, Ryan’s body heat was the only thing left to focus on, and he seemed to be positively radiating, warm and comfortable. Greg found himself leaning into him a little more than was exactly necessary. He felt shivery, unsteady on his feet, and he wondered if he would have a cold the next morning, and in the same line of thought, wondered if he would be waking up with Ryan in his bed the next morning.

He turned his head to look at Ryan, who looked soft in the low lighting, his eyes mirroring something gentle but dangerous, something forbidden, and at that moment, nothing seemed like it was entirely impossible anymore, and so Greg guiltily entertained the thought of slowly undressing Ryan and laying him down on a bed, making him beg for it…

Their mutual reverie was broken as a strong British voice rang through the air, “Greg? Ryan? Are you out there?” And then Ryan checked with him, a quick flick of his eyes, a barely distinguishable movement of consent from Greg, and they were both leaning in, closing the distance between them. When his lips actually reached Ryan’s it was really chaste, Greg thought, but soft too; they were both shivering and it was uncoordinated, a quick heated flash of tongue, the faint taste of nicotine and alcohol, the strange feeling of cold lips, and then they stepped apart, both breathing a little harder, sharing a crazy grin before stepping back into the rain and to where Clive was calling them.

And that, Greg would admit later, that was the exact moment he had fallen (what? In love? In lust? Could a person fall into friendship?) with Ryan. Not during their kiss, it had been too fast and undefined to predict anything major. But right after, when Ryan grinned at him like a ten year old boy who just got a cookie, and then walked away, his hair getting soaking wet again, the silhouette of his square shoulders slowly disappearing in the dark night, his voice an already familiar rumble as he talked to Clive. _That_ had been it, the kick, the rush to the head Greg had been looking for his entire life, even though he didn’t know it yet.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

It was over eight months before Greg saw Ryan again, and while he thought back on the evening he had met him as a nice memory, he didn’t dwell on it.

The only thing that had changed was when the name “Ryan Stiles” would come up with Josie or Mike or Clive or anyone else, he’d smile and say something forgettable such as “yeah, he’s fun” or “sure, he’s really good, he should come back sometime.” Nothing grand, nothing special; nobody asked him about it either, and when he heard Ryan would come to London and do a few shows that year he managed to feel as politely pleased but unaffected by this as anyone would have expected him to.

He had gotten married in the mean time, and although his wife and he had agreed on a certain leniency towards those things, he didn’t mean to cheat on her. He hadn’t before (not counting one-night stands, but they were _different_ ) and had assured her (and himself) on many occasions that he would never leave her, not when they had it so great together, not when she was the one and only woman he’d ever love enough to be with.

But when he walked onto the studio’s parking lot and stopped right in his tracks to see Ryan standing there, hidden in the shade of the building with his own pack of cigarettes now, offering him one from afar with a small, pleased smile around his lips, he had already known what would happen. Like a film that had been played too many times in his mind, he felt he could predict every move now, every possible way this would go. He knew that he could still, and easily at that, have said no. Instead, he accepted Ryan’s cigarette with a grin, their fingers briefly brushing together as he did, and, talking as if they had known each other for years, they smoked together, the evening slowly falling around them.

 

Their second and third taping together was marked by a sort of contained glee on Greg’s part that he desperately but expertly talked through and covered up in front of the camera. Ryan was first and foremost a professional, Greg noted, and it seemed to cost him little effort to stay in character, to be the ever steadfast and quick entertainer. But while Greg watched him, Ryan would pause every once in a while, to cast a slow, determined look in his direction.

Partly because of those looks, partly because Greg just swore there was _something_ , something that made every moment too easy, too much fun, too perfect between them, he couldn’t keep his eyes away from Ryan even if he had tried. And he didn’t. By then he had realised it was a fool’s quest to resist this whatever-on-earth-it-was-meant-to-be thing that had built between them in the time it took to smoke one single cigarette, and, true to himself, whatever it was, Greg intended to enjoy it. So he looked. No, he _gazed_ at Ryan, trying to discern every detail, every emotion.

Ryan was just as physical as he had been the last taping; it simply seemed to be his style, to say with touches what he couldn’t always with words, but this time Greg actively sought it out. They shook hands at the beginning of scenes (clasping a little too gentle, a little too long) and then again at the end. They touched while passing each other’s seats, whether they had both been in a scene or not. They reached, hugged, danced and exaggerated whenever they could get away with it, and he felt his heart speed up every time it happened.

 

When they weren’t taping, Ryan, his stay also regulated by the production team, stayed at the same hotel Greg and the others did. It was a small, bland place with a view on the water that had obviously seen better days, but it was clean, and the food was good, so none of them ever complained about it. Most importantly though, it was within walking distance of the studio, so they didn’t need to worry about much more than just showing up; everything else was taken care of.

While Greg had never hated the idea of the scheduling, (he was too fond of hanging around all day, drinking, smoking and chatting to honestly mind), he had never been quite as enthusiastic about it as when Ryan and Tony serenaded his door that day at nine in the morning, telling him to rise and shine before breakfast was gone. Or when Ryan and Josie acted out the entire second act of Macbeth with wieners at the breakfast table, Ryan insisting on portraying Macbeth as a very dirty, gay old man while lyrically waving a wiener around. For those couple days he found that, around Ryan, either on stage or off, he had a hard time containing his smiles.

They did some sightseeing under the able guidance of Josie (who took them to the Globe Theatre and the main museums) and Tony (who insisted they see the local sex shops and knew a great place to buy crack) and some by themselves too (Ryan asked him along for a beer-run at night, and it took them three hours and directions from a hobo to find the way back), but mainly they just did nothing at all, lying around on their beds, watching tv with a six-pack next to them. In all, Ryan’s presence seemed to make everything new and exciting in its own right, and Greg, as he defined it to himself, was plain _happy_ for those couple days.

Did he think about the kiss he’d shared with Ryan? Constantly. But, never one to break up a great time, he didn’t say anything about it, and neither did Ryan. To Greg, it was obvious they could have been having an even better time, but as Ryan would talk about his new-born daughter with Josie, he’d share a look with Greg that said “not now, not while I can still try and be what I need to be.” And Greg got it, to a certain extent. He _was_ married too, after all.

But then there was the reason they had ever kissed in the first place. All good will and intentions aside, it was always there, hot and _urgent_ between them. On their late-night, mid-day or early-morning walks towards and from the studio, bars, the liquor store, their shoulders would bump together, accidentally, and both of them would pause and then overcompensate, leaving a huge gap between them. When lying on the bed together, watching a sports game neither of them was really interested in, Greg’s hand would travel to lie next to Ryan’s, and both of them would look at their almost-joined hands from the corner of their eye, not commenting.

It was on the last evening they spent together, after the last taping, after much drinking, laughing and somewhere just before dawn, that Greg felt overly daring, overly giddy from yet another taping season well done, and breached their imaginary drawn line of what was all right and what wasn’t by kissing Ryan squarely on the mouth.

They had been outside, together for yet another cigarette break, (Ryan seemed to want to join him every time he went out for one, so Greg found himself suddenly smoking twice as much) under a clouded London sky, dark but with already a hint of velvety blue to it, a promise of yet another vague and shrouded sunrise. They had been contemplating destiny together, Ryan drunkenly arguing that if there was such a thing as destiny, every fucking thing they did, from waking up with a hang-over to taking a crap, was planned ahead by some higher power, and that that was just plain bullshit. Greg, just as intoxicated and slightly swaying on his feet, had loudly agreed and thrown an arm around Ryan’s waist, more to steady the both of them than anything else, but Ryan had felt so warm, so _real_ under his touch, that he had burrowed closer into his warmth until they were flat out hugging.

He had felt drawn to Ryan’s mouth, half-open and temptingly close by, had tilted his head upwards, and somehow that progressed into a drunken, wet and sloppy kiss that had no possible right to feel that good, but it did. Greg’s hands gripped the back of Ryan’s jacket, pulling him closer with a grunt, and then Ryan’s warm and shaking hands were in his hair, and the back of his neck, touching, stroking. Ryan’s leg found its way in between his, and they were moving together, breathing hard, ‘it’s fucking time,’ he thought, and when they stepped apart he faltered a bit, not wanting to lose Ryan’s touch.

“We’re outside,” Ryan absently breathed into his ear, at the same time his hands reaching for Greg’s belt. 

“Don’t care,” Greg replied, and he honest to god didn’t, as they shared a quick, heated look and he was helping Ryan’s fumbling hands speed up, longing for the touch, the friction. He shivered, his skin breaking out in goose bumps as his pants fell to the ground and Ryan stepped in front of him, covering him up from anyone who might be watching and wrapped his hand around Greg’s dick, steadying him with the other.

How he touched was rough, on the edge of painful, and Greg swallowed, willing himself not to come too fast, but it felt so damn overwhelming that he _wanted_ to, so bad, and when Ryan laughed a little at his response and then met his mouth in another battle of a kiss, he did, uttering one silent “fuck…” as his orgasm rushed through him, Ryan still shielding him, Ryan’s hands warm and steady as they prevented him from slipping to the ground.

After that, Ryan just held him there for a minute, his tall and wiry form blocking most of the cold of the morning, his arms wrapped comfortably around Greg, the both of them leaning into each other. When Greg pushed him away it was to get his pants back on, and with the idea to (wholeheartedly) return Ryan’s gesture, but he saw a flash of hurt in Ryan’s eyes when he did so, and then Ryan was looking away, eyes on the slowly brightening skyline.

Greg wanted to say something, anything, but instead he reached over to pull Ryan’s shirt from his trousers and ran his hands over the soft skin of Ryan’s back, appreciatively feeling the sharp outline of bones and muscles trapped beneath. He got little response from Ryan, but as he changed tactics and unzipped Ryan’s pants, he did find him half-hard.

As he went down on his knees, Ryan’s hand was on his shoulder, his voice a warning and maybe something else altogether when he looked him in the eyes and said a “Greg…” that made him shiver.

Greg however, smiled, maybe a little cynically, and lowered his mouth over Ryan’s dick. As Ryan breathed in a sharp breath, he smiled a little more and set to work making Ryan forget whatever it was he had been thinking. ‘Nothing like sex to trap you in the moment,’ he thought, just a tad of bitterly, and swirled his tongue over the head of Ryan’s dick, appreciatively tasting him for the first time. 

When Ryan came he was completely silent, and Greg swallowed easily before leaving him to tuck himself back in, not looking at anything.

 

Why they didn’t stop talking right then and there or both went up to their rooms to create some distance, Greg never knew. All he knew was that they leaned into each other, the space between them gone now, and watched the sun rise together, not saying much.

‘And it wasn’t romantic,’ Greg thought, ‘not at all.’

The part of the city they were in was heavily industrialised, with a nasty, irony smell to the air, and the sound of cars passing in the nearby street occasionally breaking the silence. Even the sunrise wasn’t a great one; it was too foggy and clouded to really see anything but the slow change of light from blue to a washed out grey. Both were still in their taping clothes, their faces dry and prickly from the make-up, breath heavy and stale from the cigarettes and beer, hands cold and sweaty, generally shivery and nauseous from the lack of sleep and drinking, on the edge of a fabulous hangover, sluggish and tired with the sexual release. ‘But it was _perfect_ ,’ he thought. In that moment, it was.

 

A couple hours later, as he hugged Ryan goodbye at the Heathrow airport with the ease of an old and true friend, Ryan, to his surprise, warmly whispered into his ear, “See you in New York,” before giving him one last, quick smile, and leaving.

 

\---

Undecided for a moment, he stops at a crossroads, people filing behind him. The slow, chilly rain has picked up in pace to a full-blown rain shower, and he shivers as he stands. It’s still early morning, but the city is waking up, lone people with colorful umbrellas appearing all around him, until they are no longer alone but a mass, a mass of people. Commuters? Tourists? With cups of coffee in their hands, or newspapers or briefcases, ready to start yet another day, ready to lead their life.

He has rarely felt so excommunicated from a crowd as he does today, watching them pass by, none of them truly cheery (it seems to be still too early for that, and he agrees) but none of them exceptionally sad either. Just jaded, callused, used to life and what it demands, not expecting surprises but not entirely unhappy about that fact either.

He remembers looking upon such people with disdain, making fun of their nine-to-five lives, convincing himself he would never become one of them. As he looks at them today though, he almost wishes he had. There’s a sheer _normalcy_ radiating from them, one that attracts him now, one that seems so much more desirable than the life he has lead (fought for?) for the past so-many-years.

He’s cold, hasn’t slept or eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours, and he wouldn’t mind normally; he even welcomes the uneasiness of it, the cold despair, but he does have a goal of some sorts, and he doesn’t care to pass out before he reaches it, and that’s why he halts.

He has many friends in London still, although where they shared small and crummy apartments years ago, most of them have moved on to the suburbs now, to large and oppressive country homes with flowers on the windowsills and, more often than not, children and spouses running around, settling back in a creature comfort kind of life, only occasionally coming back to the noise and excitement of London to perform.

In fact, there’s only one person he knows who still lives in the same apartment she did ten years ago, and his memory brings him to the doorstep of a gorgeous 1920’s building, scanning the yellow-lit doorbells for the one he is looking for.

 

\---

 

New York turned out to be everything he had hoped it would be, a year ago since he had met Ryan now, and more.

He was slightly nervous as he packed, aiming some snide remarks at his wife and then instantly feeling guilty for them, and picked something from a box in the back of his closet, putting it into his jacket pocket, right before he left.

He took a cab over to the airport and met Clive (who was looking at his watch with a slightly concerned expression) at the entrance. They would both take the Heathrow-JFK flight, and as Clive handed him the tickets, he was surprised to note they would be flying first class. “They’re finally starting to make money from this,” Clive noted with a smile, and Greg agreed, glad they would have some leg space for once.

Thinking about Ryan for the umpteenth time that day, Greg unconsciously reached inside his pocket and fumbled with what was inside, seeing the image of Ryan again, how sated and content he had looked right after coming down his throat. How they had both smiled, nonchalantly but with a hint of something desperate, when they said goodbye. How he longed to feel Ryan naked against him, in his bed.

Clive, as they walked through the sliding door into the brightly lit airport, casually eyed Greg’s pocket, and then, without missing a beat, warned him, “You might have done better not to bring that on a plane, you know.”

Greg, abruptly pulled out of his thoughts, stopped, wondered at his own transparency, and then nodded astutely, “That’s why I plan on smoking it before we leave. Care to join me?”

When Clive had wordlessly looked him over and then had followed him into a mostly-empty corridor, he had been pleased but not surprised. As they passed the joint between them, he realized with something close to interest that there really was more to Clive Anderson than what met the eye. And when that particular flight included a quickie in the bathroom stall, because Greg was just plain horny with the foresight of seeing Ryan again and Clive, well, Clive didn’t get high nearly as often as Greg did and was acting maybe just a little out of character, neither of them ever talked about it again.

What they would admit to was buying all the chocolate the stewardess had available and gleefully bickering over who got to eat the last piece. When Greg lost, he called Clive a “fucked up, British old queen” loud enough for the entire first class to enjoy, and Clive had pretended not to hear him, eyes glittering as he stared out the plane window.

In all it was the most enjoyable plane trip Greg had experienced in years, and when they landed (Clive and he quietly snickering at the buildings that were getting bigger and bigger in an absurd, cartoonish kind of way) he was sure that most of their co-passengers were on the edge of a nervous breakdown, very, very glad to see them leave.

It was dark outside by the time their cab reached the hotel, and they were tired and worn out, comfortably dozing in the back seat, Greg slightly drooling on Clive’s shoulder. In front of their hotel, the cab driver woke them with a loud cough, (Clive woke up with a startled “sorry?” and then threw a dirty look at Greg while inspecting the state of his jacket. Greg yawned a couple times and then grinned sheepishly, not in the least bit sorry) and then left them to carry their own luggage inside, undoubtedly annoyed that they hadn’t tipped him more.

The first taping wasn’t planned until the next day, but it was late and nobody seemed to be around (‘Probably all at a bar,’ Clive said with a certain disdain when he noted Greg’s wistful looks), and so they just checked in and went to bed, separately.

When Ryan was not at his door first thing the next morning, Greg didn’t allow himself to feel disappointed, not really. But when Ryan was not at breakfast, nor lunch, he started to feel as if he had been hoping for too much perhaps. In the end it was a new guy named Brad who informed him that yes, Ryan had checked in, but he had left for the day to explore New York with Colin.

Surprised, Greg turned around and asked “Who’s Colin?”

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

He got his answer later that night when he was in costuming, chatting away with one of the make-up girls, and was suddenly approached by a man in his middle-thirties with a sweet and timid look to him.

“Hello,” Greg had said questioningly, letting the question of “who the fuck are you and why are you bothering me” lustily shine through. “Hi,” the man had replied, and then, non-phased, walked up closer, extended his hand and said “I’m Colin, and we’re eh… performing together later?”

And at that, Greg smiled. He had been mulling over the idea of Colin, the man who apparently meant so much to Ryan he’d ditch all of them for him, in his head all day and to have the guy right there, introducing himself so politely (‘must be a Canadian thing,’ he thought) was both nice and intriguing.

“So, Colin…” (Greg looked him over, all the way from his tan shoes to the slightly-balding head) “you’re a friend of Ryan’s?” He hadn’t meant anything more with that question, since that was about everything he knew about the guy, but Colin seemed to take it defensively, his expression hardening, and readily gave a slightly-too-fast reply about how he had been with Second City as well, had done a couple shows before and now was signed on for most of the week of tapings. Greg wondered about that, sensing some kind of contradiction there, but never got his chance to ask anything more as the man in question, Ryan, stepped in the room and everything else seemed just that less important.

If at all possible, Ryan looked even better and more inviting now than he had a year ago. His hair was shorter, no longer curly and long in the back but more like Greg’s, trimmed and spiky. His sense of fashion was still plain awful, he wore a shirt and tie combination that made him look like a woodsman, but his smile was radiant and real, and Greg couldn’t help but return it.

Right when he wondered if they had time for a cigarette, the producer entered and ushered them all out to the stage. He could tell by the way Ryan looked at him and momentarily touched his upper arm when passing by he must have been thinking something along the same lines, which made him instantly feel better. At least nothing seemed to be changed between them.

But, as the show started, he immediately sensed a difference in Ryan. Instead of sitting back, relaxed, Ryan’s leg was now bopping up and down in a nervous pattern that he would grow to be very familiar with, but right then it was an anomaly. Why was he nervous now when he so obviously hadn’t been with any of the previous shows? He also seemed a lot more engaged in what was going on on stage when he wasn’t on it. Greg tried to catch his eye a couple times, but they seemed glued to what Colin was doing on there, a serious, studious expression on his face. Was he worried for him?

He knew that Colin was _good_ friend of Ryan’s (courtesy of Brad, who had apparently been Ryan’s stand-in at some point, and surprisingly forthcoming when treated to a couple beers in the hotel lounge); were they just good friends or more maybe?

As he looked at Colin, he deemed it improbable; he looked very kind, but not in the slightest bit attractive. Still, Ryan seemed to act as if he _owed_ Colin something, his attention when needed, his unfaltering support, and it kind of bugged Greg.

As soon as he started playing scenes with Colin, though, his respect for the man grew. He might not have showed much of a personality, but he certainly was a great improv talent. Where Ryan tended to be in control of the scene for you, ready to steer away from everything unwanted and towards everything unexpected, Colin seemed to prefer to let him lead. But when he did go somewhere with an idea, it was usually utterly insane and with an intelligent, abstract kind of humor that left Greg (and the audience) baffled at several occasions.

When Ryan and Colin did a couple scenes together, he watched them closely and what he saw there made him feel more at ease in a way. It was painfully obvious they had played together many, many times, seamlessly taking over each other’s rhythms and lines of thought, but, where Colin seemed to be the one initiating some sexual innuendo or touching, Ryan kept a respectful, even guarded distance. ‘Ryan did something to him… something that he’s trying to make up for,’ Greg intuitively decided, determined to, at some point, find out what.

While that last thought might have served as a bit of a warning, it really accomplished the opposite. Greg quite simply _wanted_ Ryan, right that evening if at all possible, and felt no hesitation about making that fact quite clear. When there was a joke about something swallowing something other, he turned to Ryan and whispered a comment in his ear that made him crack up and Colin throw a curious look in their direction. During breaks, as Ryan sipped his water glass or seemed lost in thought, he reached out and tapped his arm with the back of his hand, making a snide, crude or sexual comment that had Ryan laughing heartily and his eyes shining.

All underlying currents aside, they were _good_ that evening, and they all knew it. The audience was crazy, Clive threw them little glances littered with pride and amusement, and they themselves were quick on their feet, fast and witty, urged on by what Greg hoped wasn’t too obviously sexual energy.

 

After the show he immediately went for his dressing room and felt both pleased and anxious when Ryan, without even a second glance to Colin, followed him. He felt hot, radiating body heat from performing under the warm stage lights, and still buzzing with the pleasant tension performing always gave him. He reached for the bottle of scotch he had left in his dressing room (not that he had ever really liked scotch, but that was beside the point) and poured two glasses while he heard Ryan close the door behind them.

He handed one glass to Ryan, who seemed to be over-heated as well, a slight blush to his otherwise unreadable face. Greg raised his glass in the air in a silent toast, and then drank, thinking he might need the courage. Ryan, however, just laughed, put the glass aside and grabbed Greg’s tie, giving it an experimental pull, lights in his eyes. Greg snorted then too, laughing at the mere absurdity of it, and then Ryan’s mouth met his in a hard and fast kiss.

Breaking apart, Greg snickered and commented “missed me much?” Ryan laughed but didn’t reply as he pulled him into another kiss, softer this time.

When it dwindled to just the two of them standing close, Ryan took a step away, and Greg, eager not to let him get away, suggested “why don’t we skip the bar tonight?” Ryan seemed torn for a moment but then agreed and, after a brief stop at his own dressing room, followed Greg into the night air.

Where the London studios gave away to nothing but a quiet parking lot, the New York ones were situated right on a busy boulevard, and they had to navigate red lights, boardwalks and hoards of people before finally getting to a quieter side street, one where they could talk.

They caught up quickly, Ryan telling him with obvious pride about his daughter and how she had recently taken her first steps until Greg uncomfortably changed the subject. Greg was in the middle of his retelling the fabulous tale of how Clive had gotten high on the plane with him, knowing that Ryan could keep a secret, when they entered the hotel lobby.

Walking through the revolving doors, Ryan accidentally triggered some mechanism that stopped the thing and nearly fell face-first into the glass wall, causing Greg to snort. Playfully hurt, Ryan pushed Greg to his own side of the glass, which caused it to stop moving again, only this time there was a small opening into the lobby where Ryan slipped through, already five steps away before Greg realised he was being invited to chase him.

As soon as he did, Ryan looked back, laughed, and started running, his long legs carrying him through the lobby in fast strides. Greg tried to follow, but already a couple paces behind and just not as an athletic runner as Ryan was, he made it to the door reading “stairs” just in time to hear Ryan’s footsteps echoing on the stairway, undoubtedly well on their way to the third floor. Mentally cursing his “all smoke no exercise” life-style, Greg cracked it up a notch and started running up the stairs, taking three at once, and when Ryan briefly stumbled in between floors he gained on him significantly, almost able to grab Ryan’s leg before he was scrambling up and running up again.

At the third floor, Ryan swung the door open and then shut behind him, nearly hitting Greg in the face. He blocked the impact with his hands and thundered through, confusedly looking left and right for where Ryan had gone, not seeing him anywhere. Suddenly, he was being banged against the door by the strength of Ryan’s full body, who breathlessly exclaimed “Got you,” before leaning in and locking him into a fast, dire kiss with lots of tongue, Greg still gasping for breath and seeing spots in between.

The kiss, although doing nothing to calm his breathing or the insistent thumping of his heart, made him forget all about the fact that he was supposed to be pissed at Ryan for making him sprint up all those stairs, or for pouncing on him in the hallway like a horny teenager… Hazily thinking of nothing else but the feeling of Ryan’s lips on his, he looked up, and, suddenly noticing that the hallway was not exactly empty, gave Ryan a panicked push, who didn’t get the clue right away.

He had to yelp “Ryan!” to get him to stop and look up to see the elderly couple standing near the elevator doors, the husband pointedly looking away, repeatedly pressing on the “up” button, while the wife had flushed a faint scarlet and was staring at them open-mouthedly. Greg, not daring to look at Ryan, moved away from the door and started walking towards his own room; when Ryan caught up with him, giving him a grin that confirmed he wasn’t embarrassed in the least, and as Greg turned around and yelled “Sorry!” while the couple was disappearing into the elevator, Ryan laughed loudly.

They stumbled into Greg’s hotel room, not completely recovered yet from what had just happened, Ryan laughing, Greg quietly snickering, sweating and out of breath from the running, cracking up over the thought of having shown two people something they probably had never seen before. When they fell onto the bed together it was almost out of habit, back from the days in London where they spent endless hours watching TV together, commenting on the games and getting drunk on Guinness with Tony.

As Greg lay on his back on the bed, recounting “…and she was looking at us so completely clueless…” Ryan suddenly lurched over him, eyeing him with what he supposed was lust or expectation and he stopped mid-sentence, instantly forgetting what he had been saying.

Instead of Ryan kissing him again, however, Ryan’s hands were at the side of Greg’s face, gently lifting his glasses off. He stopped Ryan’s movement with his hand, suddenly feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, and quipped. “I tend to need those” In reply Ryan shook his head, smiled and said “no you don’t,” before placing them on the nightstand.

When he let Ryan do so without protesting about it further, he should have known he was in over his head. Instead he unexpectedly noticed how there were little flecks of green in Ryan’s eyes up close, and how luscious his hair felt to rake his fingers through. How bony Ryan’s shoulders felt to touch, and how he could feel the outline of his spine when his hands traveled over his back, on to cup his ass...

And then Ryan’s teeth nipped his neck, and he was focused in the moment again, suddenly concerned with undoing Ryan’s tie tossing it beside the bed and unbuttoning his shirt, so it hung open over him, revealing a lean torso, countable ribs but a surprisingly soft stomach, where, when he ran his fingers across it, Ryan seemed to be ticklish, squirming a little. He smiled, and Ryan grinned back and sat up, shrugging off his shirt and stepping out of his pants and shoes. He seemed to be aware of Greg watching him, but little concerned with the fact, instead patiently waiting until Greg did the same.

Greg, a firm and cheeky believer in first (second?) impressions, made more of a show of it though, carefully revealing inch by inch of his thigh, taking off his shirt with a swoosh, leaving nothing on but the ragged little bracelets on his arm. He could see Ryan had appreciated it, sitting on the edge of the bed, vaguely touching himself with his eyes trained on Greg, intense and hungry.

Fully naked now, Greg moved on the bed to sit behind Ryan and to swat his hand away and run his warm fingers across the soft skin of Ryan’s dick (Ryan sucked in a sharp breath), to feel Ryan’s back against his chest, breathe in his scent. They stayed that way for a while, Greg slowly fisting Ryan’s dick while rubbing himself against Ryan’s lower back, building up friction. He was breathing hot breaths into Ryan’s neck, listening to all the breathy sounds Ryan made that he had missed the first time. He whispered with a deep delight “you like that” into Ryan’s ear, and felt him tense up in return. He had known Ryan was getting close, and he had no problem with bringing him off like that; the night was still young after all, but then Ryan suddenly pushed his hands off and got up, looking flushed and aroused, and went through his pants on the floor, returning with a condom and some lube.

Greg smiled. He had been secretly wishing for something better from Ryan, the feeling of being surrounded, overwhelmed, one that he sought for in every one-night stand, the feeling of a strong, straining man pinning him down, forcing him to take it, sweat building up between them… He grabbed Ryan and pulled him on top of him, and he appreciated it when Ryan, looking determined now, immediately went lower, a second later slowly pressing a lubed finger into him, and he tensed up, swallowing and then instructing “fuck, Ryan… hurry up”. Ryan laughed and obliged, adding a second finger and, as soon as he could, a third.

Greg moaned as Ryan entered him, something about “god…” and “fuck…” and multiple times “Ryan!” and then Ryan moved and he saw stars behind his eyelids, after a few thrusts violently coming over the both of them, Ryan pounding away in him, Greg meeting every thrust, and then Ryan yelled out too, coming in suppressed shudders.

They stayed together for a while, and then each rolled onto their backs, Ryan flinging the condom to the floor.

Greg, not wanting to keep his mouth shut, remarked to the ceiling “Well, I suppose that was…” “Yeah,” Ryan replied from next to him, a sated smile in his voice. They looked at each other for a long moment, not quite smiling but their eyes glittering, until Greg averted his eyes to the nightstand, his voice only slightly unsteady when he asked “cigarette?”

They had sex once more that night, afterwards lying sleepily moulded together on the edge of the bed, Greg on his side and Ryan half-over him, legs tangled together and with the sheets, Ryan absently playing with the bracelets of Greg’s arm. Greg, his face in the pillows, stretched his fingers to graze over Ryan’s mouth, blindly tracing it’s contours, until Ryan slowly opened his mouth and sucked his fingers in, lazily lapping them with his tongue before letting go, softly smiling into the dark.

They fell asleep like that, Greg uncomfortably squashed, and he should have moved, he thought, but he didn’t quite have the heart, and as he listened to Ryan’s steady, calming breathing, eventually he fell asleep too.

 

\---

As Josie’s electronic voice nasally sounds through the speaker; he starts, she sounds so achingly familiar right then, so much like a far-away home that he has to do a double take on the fact that he’s actually in London. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just says “Josie,” a one-word confirmation of what she is to him, where she is, that he needs her, all of the above. He can hear her gasp through the static, and when she tells him to stay put it doesn’t occur to him to reply.

When she throws open the door, he can tell she must have hurried; her breathing is fast, her hair messy and untied. She’s still in her pyjama’s, and that’s when he realises it’s too early still to wake somebody, that he shouldn’t have, really, but as he notes her red-rimmed eyes he knows she must not have been sleeping either.

They stand in the doorway for a startlingly long moment. He can tell she wants to reach out, hug him, but there must be something in his face that tells her not to because after a second’s hesitation she steps back and lets him pass by.

He follows her up to her apartment, and she makes him tea, gives him dry clothes and then prepares some sort of sandwich that Greg eats without tasting. Somehow they manage to do all that without really looking at each other, without either of them acknowledging the abstract quality of the day, the surreal feeling of sudden and sharp instants of hurt, buried between thousands of seconds when there just seems to be nothing, no color, no taste, no use for the moment, just time passing by. When Greg gets ready to leave, they haven’t spoken about it, yet, but they both seem somewhat better for it.

“Where will you go?” she asks, her eyes deep brown and compassionate, and he shakes his head, eyes on the floor when he lies “No fucking clue.”

“Oh,” she says, and he knows that she wants to ask him to stay, to sleep on her sofa or maybe in her bed with her until they can both figure this out, until their world goes back to being one where there’s never silence, one where they love to bicker and fight together, never shutting up even when Ryan asked them to.

Ryan… Greg hisses in a breath trough his teeth, and is back on his feet before she can ask anything else. “Thanks Josie,” he says, and this time he means it. She bites back some tears, and then his arms are around her and she is crying into his jacket, with short, hitching movements. He doesn’t say anything to comfort her, and when she lets go he turns around and leaves, knowing she doesn’t mind that he does.

\---

 

He was woken up immediately when Ryan left the bed, but pretended to sleep on. He knew from experience there was nothing he could have said that wouldn’t have been awkward anyway. He could hear Ryan scramble to find his clothes and put them back on in the semi-dark, but didn’t offer to turn on the light, and he didn’t open his eyes until he heard the quiet click of the door being closed.

He blinked a couple times and then reached for the nightstand, flicking on the light and, with the memory of Ryan taking them away from him, put his glasses back on. After a minute, he got up and turned on the TV, and he spent the next hour staring at the flickering, bluish light of a repeat newscast with the sound on low, drinking some whiskey from the mini-bar, smoking cigarette after cigarette although it was technically a non-smoking room.

When he went back to sleep he felt conflicted, his sleep light and fitful, only getting deep towards the morning. It was almost nine when he was woken by a phone call from Clive, (who had a strange sense of politeness that included never banging on his door before noon, although Greg suspected he must have been tempted at least a couple times) and asked him if he wanted to come along to some art festival during the day.

Eyeing the condoms on the floor while tuning out Clive’s voice, he absently agreed to whatever it was he wanted to do and put the phone back in the receiver. He felt strangely drained and elated at the prospect of another day. He took a long, hot shower (not thinking of Ryan, not at all), and then went to join the others for a late breakfast of some toast and black coffee.

When he claimed “hang-over” nobody questioned him.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

When Ryan again was not to be seen for the entire day, this time Greg felt almost relieved at that and then questioned himself for feeling that way, easily conjuring up memories of London, how uncomplicated and utterly comfortable it had been to be around Ryan, how often they laughed about nothing at all, how easy the jokes came. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he swore to himself to never get headaches over the man. The sex had been amazing, yes, but they both had a very fulfilling life outside of that and if it was only a one-time thing it was no use to dwell on it after all.

A couple hours later he was walking with Clive and Richard over the busy, over-populated streets of New York, unlike them finding a sort of solace in the constant noise and movement. They had gone to see a rather good art exhibition, and he had found a great amount of pleasure in discussing the merits of a certain contemporary American painter with Clive, the both of them really getting into the argument.

Richard, knowing them well enough not to interfere, had gone off to buy himself a beer and returned a good thirty minutes later, a flush on his cheeks and a catalogue in his hand. All they could get out of him was that “he had run into a tour guide” but Clive and Greg secretly betted where he had had sex (‘in the bathroom,’ Clive suggested, ‘somewhere kinkier, maybe a storage room’ Greg decided), and with which tour guide (‘woman?’ Clive questioned, ‘nah, defiantly a guy’ Greg determined), hoping to be able to get it out of him some time.

They had to be back at the studios rather soon, so they decided to take a cab straight there. Greg, however, busied with the task of hailing them one, had become increasingly frustrated when yellow cab after yellow cab passed them by. It took a good ten minutes, and when there finally was one that stopped, he was plain exasperated to see it filled by Colin, who opened the door and motioned them in with a big smile.

“We just went to pick up Chip at the airport and get him to the studio,” Colin explained. Greg decided he couldn’t care less who this Chip person (was that a real name anyway? “Chip”?) was, and closed his eyes, head leaning back against the smooth leather interior of the cab, fighting back a growing headache. Suddenly he really wished he hadn’t smoked that joint with Clive but had saved it…

“Are you playing tonight Colin?” he could hear Richard ask, and when Colin replied “No, but I think I’ll watch,” Greg found he felt a little better. At least he would have a relaxed Ryan next to him again, not the bundle of nerves he had seen yesterday. At least the taping would go all right. And maybe after… he wouldn’t let himself think quite that far yet, but he did find a knot of tension in his stomach that hadn’t been there before. Ryan… Ryan was rapidly becoming something he longed for, and he wasn’t quite sure whether to enjoy or fight that fact.

As they stepped out of the cab, Clive paying for their fare, Ryan, wearing a bright red shirt, was out in the lobby, stoically smoking a cigarette, doing his best not to look like he was waiting for them. Greg could see out of the corner of his eye that Colin hadn’t been fooled either, a slight frown on his face. When he saw them, Ryan gave them all a general nod, a quick, unreadable flash of eyes at Greg, and then was pulled into a conversation with Colin. Greg noted the casual hand Colin put on Ryan’s side, stressing some point or another, but he stepped past them and to his dressing room, thinking about possibly finishing off that bottle of scotch before the taping began…

He ended up having to hurry, cynically donning himself in an all-black outfit, momentarily snickering at his own prepubescent behaviour before finishing off a full glass of scotch, swallowing a Tylenol for his headache, and heading to the greenroom.

He aimed a loaded wink at Richard there, but before he could get Clive to join him in a lets-get-the-truth-out-of-Richard banter session, they were called to the stage.

 

The show went well once he got to concentrating on what was a comforting persona, the banter with Clive, the one-line jokes, the clever word plays and high-pitched voices, and he felt his heavy mood lift to be replaced by the focused, sharp buzz of performing.

Later, he wouldn’t remember what games they did that night, but he rarely strove to recall his acting so it didn’t bother him. He knew he was focused on Ryan, maybe more than he should have been, but the audience laughed, so, as he had learned long ago, anything else was secondary.

Somewhere around the middle of the show he had started longing for a cigarette, the curious, aching feeling that was both familiar and annoying, and as soon as the producer stepped up to thank all for a well-done taping, he bolted out of his seat, not even listening to the final applause. He grabbed his cigarettes and stepped outside, through the lobby, onto the busy boulevard and around a corner, to where he hoped he could light up and just be alone for a fucking second.

While he had known that Ryan would follow him, he hadn’t thought he was _that_ transparent when Ryan appeared around the same corner a good minute later and asked “are you done having your five minutes or should I come back later?”

He scowled, and Ryan stepped up to take a drag from Greg’s cigarette, passing it back to him with a shrug that said “we’ve shared more than this…”

Eyes on the floor, tapping his cigarette so the ashes fell on the grey asphalt, Greg asked, “Are the guys doing anything tonight?” Meaning _will you come with me_ , but falling just short of actually implying anything.

“Yes. They, eh, Colin… and Archie wanted to go to… there’s a Blues bar downtown to play pool, it’s supposed to be good.” Ryan spoke softly, apparently determined not to mean anything either.

“Ok,” Greg said while dropping his cigarette to the floor and stubbing it out with his shoe.

“Fine.” Ryan put his hands in his pockets, obviously determined not to even touch him, and they walked back to the studios together, an icy thin sense of… what? ‘Annoyance’ Greg thought, between them, and as soon they were in the lobby (the security guy giving them a polite nod, Greg cynically wondering if Richard had maybe screwed that guy too) they split up, leaving for their own rooms.

Once back in his dressing room, Greg did finish his bottle of scotch and then got back into the hallway, quite positive he’d be able to pester Clive and Richard into joining them. When he talked to them, he heard they had already been informed of the evening’s plans and were quite enthusiastic about it, so he just went to pack his stuff and they were ready to go.

Greg happened to know Clive was a great pool player, so even he felt mildly excited at the prospect of getting Archie, Chip, or maybe Colin to bet against Clive and maybe earn a bit of the profit.

As they filed out in a single line and he held the door for Colin in jest, he saw Ryan looking at them with the same intense look he had seen on his face the evening before —in the taping with Colin— and felt briefly guilty. Apparently, Colin was not to be touched, which was something he could live with but made him even more suspicious of what had preceded between them.

Once at the bar, they fell into their natural groups of Clive playing pool against Richard (Greg mentally betted for Clive, even though he knew Richard wasn’t too bad either) and Ryan, Colin, Chip and Archie at a little table, ordering drinks. When Greg joined them with the request of someone to play against, he had been hoping Ryan would, but it was Archie who took him up on the offer and who was expertly kicking Greg’s ass a couple minutes later.

Clive had once told him he lacked the finesse of a pool player, and he tended to agree as he glanced over to Clive and Richard’s table where both of them where carefully aligning shots, taking at least a minute to aim before doing anything, but when they did, making pretty amazing shots.

Archie seemed to have no such hold-ups as he put down his beer to accept the cue, aimed and without even leaning over the table seemed to be able to hit anything he wanted, afterwards simply going back to sipping his drink. Greg knew he wasn’t much of a challenge to him, and so they stopped playing after one game in favour of watching the others.

Clive and Richard’s game was, however slow, quite spectacular, and they had drawn a small crowd of on-lookers right when Clive carefully scored the last two balls and finished the game, Richard demanding a re-match. Greg, who had seen them play many times already, soon got bored and wandered over to the table where Ryan and Colin were sitting, sans Chip, apparently busily discussing something or another, Colin leaning in close to whisper something into Ryan’s ear.

They didn’t notice Greg right away when he joined them, but when they did they both straightened and looked at him expectantly. At once, he felt like the outsider, the one to break up their little love chat or whatever it was they had been having, and he felt an unexplainable kind of anger rise up inside of him. Determined not to let it show, he asked some general questions from Colin, carefully avoiding any topic that would have been insulting while quietly waging a war with Ryan. Ryan seemed to try and ignore his glances, but when he did look up it was with anger in his eyes as well; he had obviously disturbed something Ryan hadn’t wanted him to, and that served to make Greg feel even more annoyed.

After a while, Colin, maybe not too perceptive but not blind either, looked back from Greg to Ryan and excused himself, mumbling something about “going over there” before bolting to sit at the bar with Chip.

As soon as they were alone, Greg took a sip from his already warm drink and then eyed Ryan, asking with what he hoped was a level voice, “So, are you screwing him too?”

Ryan took a breath, his eyes on the direction Colin had walked in, as if to determine what to say, stalling the moment. Greg, not in the mood for taking anything but a definite denial, said in a low voice, “Don’t fucking lie Ryan.”

When Ryan still didn’t reply, Greg stood up, his chair screeching on the floor, turned around and left.

 

\---

When he steps out of Josie’s building into the street, it’s afternoon, still chilly and overcast, but dry for the moment. The people with colorful umbrellas have made way for those in dark or grey raincoats, the occasional person with a wet, rained-out hairdo passing him by, and of course his mind goes back to Ryan…

The amused Ryan he had met for the first time with the wet, dark curls and had thought comical. The time he fucked Ryan under the shower, clouds of steam billowing in the bathroom, the wet, sloppy sound his dick made plunging in and out of him, the way Ryan’s hand had pounded on the glass shower wall, trickles of water running over his back, how Ryan’s wet hair had felt between his fingers when he pulled him close for a kiss.

Then, again, the memory of the time they had come in from a rainy walk, chilled to the bone; he doesn’t know why it is such a persistent, vivid series of moments in his mind, maybe because they were young then, because time hadn’t altered them enough yet to find everything (love?) totally improbable, because Ryan still _laughed_ then, not in vague amusement but in actual, unadultered happiness, or at least he likes to believe that that was what it was.

He has another memory of Ryan and rain, but he stays away from that one because in a way it’s the most painful and perfect one of all, and he stops himself from straying there, from somehow tainting the remembrance of that particular moment, and he (suddenly, clearly) knows he has aimed all along to go _there_ , to the place from his memory.

So he takes a bus (filled with people, schoolchildren, busily conversing, the bus driver has a comforting accent) and when he pays he handles even the money with a certain painful and hazy nostalgia now. (He’d lived in England for a couple years after all, maybe the best of his life, and for a second he doesn’t recall why he went back to the US at all, until there’s more to the story that he doesn’t care to remember) and so he sits down and stares at the greying head of the bus driver in front of him until he needs to blink a couple times and starts watching for his stop.

 

\---

Ryan didn’t come after him, and he hadn’t expected him to, not really. It’s not like they had had anything exceptional, it’s not like he hadn’t been behaving like a total dick, and when he’s downing his third glass of whiskey in a strange, dark bar, he’s even ready to kind of laugh about it, about himself.

An hour or so later he asked the barman to call him a cab (he wouldn’t have been able to find his way back through the maze of streets they’d passed even if he’d been sober) and passed out in his hotel room, not even bothering to turn on the light.

When he woke again it was only a couple hours later, to a persistent, heavy knocking on his door. He yelled at them to “fuck off!” but it only served to make the knocking grow louder. When he eventually got up, quietly swearing under his breath, and swung the door open to reveal a ragged looking Ryan with blood-shot eyes, he wasn’t even surprised. He had figured Ryan would come by at some point trying to fix things; they had to work together after all, and, most importantly, they did so _well_ ; they were friends for so far as the both of them even kept friends.

But when Ryan just stood there in his doorway, reeking of scotch and not saying anything, just staring at him, he didn’t quite know what to say, other than maybe pull Ryan inside, throw the door shut behind him, use his hands to frame his face, and then kiss him, hard.

Ryan kissed him back immediately, like it was the exact thing he had been waiting for, and they struggled, clashing teeth, their kiss all hard tongue and pushing each other away and closer and harder and not quite there at the same time. Greg let himself fall on the bed, Ryan on top of him, and then they weren’t even bothering with taking anything off but pants, rubbing together, groaning suddenly meaningless names and words in increasing desperation. They _hurt_ ; they could both hurt together now and he almost wished Ryan would hit him, bruise him, leave a stain on his body that would still be there in the morning.

Before he could articulate such need —he wasn’t even sure he could— Ryan, with shaking hands, took out some lube (did he carry that fucking stuff around everywhere?) and put on a little. When Ryan met his eyes they were wild and dark but not too unfocused; he wasn’t as drunk had Greg had given him credit for, and Greg turned to his stomach, a wild rush of anticipation flooding him.

He was expecting it to be hard. He was expecting Ryan to pound on him, to take him brutally and mercilessly without any indication that he even knew who he was fucking, to make him beg and cry and for it to be in on the edge of detrimental, because that was exactly what they both needed he thought, he knew. But then, when it was none of what he had expected it was even worse, and he ended up burying his face in the pillow, hiding the tears that were threatening to spill over.

When he felt Ryan’s dick he knew right away he was doing it without a condom (and he realized he should have protested that, but then it was Ryan, _Ryan_ and so he just didn’t care, the world be damned) and that he planned to be _gentle_. Gentle.

It almost felt like a fucking insult right then, and so he moved back hard himself, forced Ryan to take him, but Ryan didn’t seem fazed, grunting, yes, but his hands stilling him, guiding him into a rhythm where he felt every fucking inch, every touch, every motion like it was the only thing in the world. And he bit his lip, scrunched up his face, willed himself not to feel it, but of course he did, sighing, moaning when Ryan bit on the patch of bare skin in his neck, the pain finally stinging and real. 

He didn’t think they came together but it wasn’t far apart either, Ryan heavy right on top of him, almost drowning him in the blankets, and he himself… _Crying_ is something he’d never admit to, but drunk and torn and fucked up. Oh so fucked up.

They stayed that way for a couple minutes, their sweat drying, their clothes uncomfortably constraining, Ryan’s come decadently wet and sticky between his legs, and when he pushed Ryan off it was because he had to pee, half-expecting to see him gone as he returned.

But when he did Ryan was still there, sitting on the bed, looking for everything in the world as if he was nineteen and lost and Greg felt like he wanted to hug him, _hug_ him, but instead he shrugged off his clothes and got in the bed, lying on his side, trying not to notice as Ryan did the same and laid down next to him, just a couple inches apart.

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

The-morning-after turned out _not_ to be uncomfortable, when Ryan (‘the Ryan from London,’ he thought, ‘the uncensored, real one’) grumbled from somewhere to the left “you fucking snore Greg” and Greg, without opening his eyes, poked him in the ribs, silently grinning at the throaty, breathy laugh Ryan had first thing in the morning.

They were both hung-over, but nothing that a few aspirin (‘and a walk outside?’ Ryan proposed) couldn’t fix, and both chipper, in a strange, unexplainable way.

Ryan went back to his own room for a shower and a change of clothes, and an hour later they were walking through Central Park, their shoulders bumping together as they walked, telling stories, laughing, even momentarily joining some teenage kids in a Frisbee game when one nearly hit Ryan in the head.

It was a bright, sunny day, and they bought ice-cream (‘breakfast,’ Ryan said, and Greg groaned, clutching his stomach, but then gleefully ordered pistachio anyway) and ate it by the “Strawberry Fields” sign. They passed a man with a guitar, a hat half-filled with coins in front of him, playing the famous Beatles song, and when they went to sit on the edge of the fountain they could still hear him, his voice a little out of tune but his playing quite good.

When Ryan, half involuntarily, started humming the lyrics along, Greg joined him at the “Living is easy with eyes closed” line, and they both sung out the song, pretending very hard not to make it into any sort of significant moment when it closed, a good minute later, and they both ended on ‘…strawberry fields… forever…” under their breaths, most of the sound diluted by the sound of the water falling in the fountain, the both of them looking up at the tree line with something of a curious smile.

The moment faded away easily when Ryan started laughing about something else, and Greg told the story of the time Steve and Tony jumped into a fountain in central London, and how Josie flashed the cop to get them out of the ticket. Between the both of them, they had an endless amount of stories of performances gone wrong, drunks in the audience, other comedians, bloopers and jokes. But mainly they could be silent after a story, letting the laughter die out to a warm and shared silence.

They were silent like this, sitting on the edge of the fountain, watching the droplets of water scatter into the greenish pool, watching an endless stream of joggers, mothers with kids, students and old people with newspapers pass them by. The park was filled with laughter at that time of the day, playing kids, dogs running around, music… However, it didn’t take long before Greg’s thoughts turned to something different altogether as he got distracted by the sight of ice-cream on Ryan’s lips, mesmerised by Ryan’s tongue slowly licking it away…

Ryan always seemed to know when he was watching him, and after a quick smile, went with it, licking the errant drops off the edge of the cone, showing off a flash of tongue, uttering a moan when softly sucking at the top. Greg swallowed and looked back at the fountain, trying not to look quite so eager.

Ryan, however, was not fooled by such an act of misdirection, and doubled his efforts, ‘doing things to ice-cream no man should do to ice-cream’ Greg thought, and then he leaned in to sneak a lick of Ryan’s cone too, the fresh silky taste of cold vanilla on his tongue and the promise of Ryan’s tongue on his mind, only not there, so public…

He stilled Ryan’s hand, his own cone slowly melting in his other, and gave it a little pull. Ryan got up with a devious expression in his eyes, probably matching the one in his own, and they started walking, fast, scanning the park for somewhere, something, ditching the ice cream cones in a green garbage can, and Greg could feel his dick harden with every step, his heart racing at the prospect of Ryan’s touch.

Finally they found something that looked like a little electricity booth, surrounded by trees, not too out of sight but enough, and before Greg knew it Ryan was on his knees before him, helping him unfasten his jeans, and touching him with soft, thoughtful touches. He groaned something about “goddamnit, sex in public means _fast_ sex Ryan” and the next moment he was being deep throated by a Ryan who managed to look both smug and a tad uncomfortable, and was too stunned by the overwhelming hotness of the sensation to say anything else but a short “oh…”.

Trying to stay in control, he tried to focus on the trees, how the sunlight filtered through their leaves. Or the crispy grass under his feet, or the feeling of cold stone at his back, the vague echo of voices and water in the air, but in the end it was of course Ryan he felt, Ryan’s tongue, Ryan’s hands rubbing his thighs, Ryan’s mouth so endlessly good and talented (‘fuck, he’s done this a million times before,’ he thought) and then he moaned, his balls tightening; he wanted to push Ryan away, but he didn’t move, and then it was the thought that Ryan would be _swallowing_ , the thought that he was coming down Ryan’s throat that put him over the edge, groaning.

Afterwards he slid down the wall to sit in the grass, looking up at Ryan.

Ryan laughed at his grateful look, easily, and then started touching himself, first through the fabric of his pants and then in earnest, showing a sliver of stomach as he slid his hand down his pants, pulling out his dick, sighing as he fisted it.

Greg wanted to reach out, to touch him himself but Ryan eyed him firmly and batted his hand away, instead leaning over Greg, supporting his weight with one hand on the wall, and he felt trapped between the grass and the wall and so much of Ryan, so close by. And he got to watch every detail of how Ryan crumbled, his face flushed, beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, his hand squeezed and went faster and faster until it was a blur and he could _smell_ Ryan, so close. And when Ryan came, aiming for the grass and his hand, Greg violently wished he would come all over him.

When Ryan was spent he just stood there, seemingly out of the world, and so Greg snuck up, placing a small lick to Ryan’s thigh that made him flinch but smile, and after a moment or so he zipped his pants up again, and so did Greg, memorising the taste of Ryan’s sweat mingling with the left-over trace of vanilla on his tongue.

They walked out of their little hideout, Ryan discreetly cleaning his hands with the napkin they got to go with the ice-cream, and, after a moment of discussion, went to lie down on a patch of grass, near the well-maintained flowerbeds, in the full sun. They were close, but not touching, the both of them looking up at the bright blue sky, the white sun high, hardly a cloud in sight.

They didn’t talk for the longest time, and Greg was sure Ryan must have fallen asleep, when suddenly he spoke up, clearly. “You’re going home tomorrow.” Greg turned his head to look at him, but Ryan was looking up at the sky with scrunched eyes, the sun colouring his face a soft pink.

“Yeah,” he said, and he wanted to add something cynical about London being cold and some inaptness of the fucking British, but then didn’t, opting to stay quiet instead. As the silence dragged on he turned to his stomach, discarding his glasses to rest his head on his arms instead.

Ryan touched the back of his hand then, briefly, in what he supposed could have been a caress or a question or anything, but he didn’t look up, keeping his face locked in the safety of his arms, pretending to be asleep, and, after a moment, he could hear Ryan do the same. 

Eventually he did fall into a light sleep, dreaming in confused flashes of sex and Ryan, but now it was he who was taking Ryan, hard and fast, but Ryan wasn’t paying attention, all he did was grasp his hand…

\---

He steps out of the bus with an unpractised, too-quick stumble, and then walks towards a car rental place (the woman behind the glass winks at him; he feels like shouting something obscene) and rents a dark, cheap Volvo. She asks if he needs a map, and when he says he doesn’t he marvels at how strange that is, to after so much time still to know the way to a place he’s been only once, and then he’s driving of the parking lot, getting used to the wrong side of the road again, mile after mile rushing past him (“kilometres,” the road signs call it, and he thinks they’re plain bull).

Eventually it’s the driving that calms him, leaving the buzz of London behind, his hands shaking, his headache piercing; he hasn’t had a cigarette in over a day and he wants to, his entire body aches to, but he doesn’t touch the packet in his pocket, instead gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles are white and breaking the speed limit as the light outside slowly dims, an early sunset to end a grey and uninspired day. 

It’s completely dark when he leaves the main roads and starts navigating through a small village, and then an even smaller, winding road, with trees on both sides.

He’s getting close. He knows so by memory, even though the last time he drove this road it was day, the roads not quite so glittering black with wet asphalt, the trees and, occasionally, a brightly lit house, not quite so oppressing. He feels anxious, a growing trepidation as he nears his destination. There is a reason he hasn’t come back here in so many years, even though he rarely lets himself think on it, but there are too many memories here. Part of him wishes the sight to be left untouched by time, by people, and part of him wishes it to be in ruins, to find no trace left of him and Ryan there, to look through the night for some indication that it was real, that he hadn’t dreamt Ryan, his touch, the _idea_ of Ryan, and to never find it again.

When the tree line breaks, it’s with a sudden and tauntingly breathtaking view of cliffs and the sea, whispering and eternally moving, a flash of dark sky and emptiness, quickly swallowed whole again by the lights of a house, a street sign, a turn in the road. Every time it happens he has to stop himself from stepping on the brakes, from stopping the car in what he hopes would be a screeching, movie-scene worth sound, and to see the sea for himself, to breathe its air.

When he sees a larger clearing he breaks and reverses the car on the small road, driving it to the side, tires slipping in the sandy, wet underground.

 

\---

 

When Ryan woke him up it was with something that was almost a whisper into his ear and almost a kiss to his cheek, and he, sleepily thinking it was a bug, tried to hit it until his hand grasped Ryan’s nose and he could feel Ryan’s warm face and mouth under his hand and smirked. When he sat up and opened his eyes the world seemed to have changed, the sun had changed position; the shadows were getting longer already, and he blinked a couple times, tracing his one hand over the grass behind him to look for his glasses

When he looked back at Ryan he saw him holding up his glasses with a grin, and he pushed him playfully on the shoulder before accepting them. As Ryan came into focus, he realised he looked sleepy as well, a bit flushed or maybe sunburned, but his eyes glittering and a gentle smile on his lips.

They walked back through the park at a leisurely pace, their shoulders once more bumping together as they walked, and he realised he hadn’t felt that stress-free, so loose and happy since the time he was in college.

The roads to the hotel were filled with cars. ‘It’s rush-hour,’ he thought, the air heavy and toxic. Together, they crossed the street at a run, to the blazoning of cars. They zigzagged through the masses, even held hands briefly at a particularly busy crossroads, and it felt terribly exciting in a juvenile way, the both of them grinning like ten-year olds.

His exhilaration didn’t last long however, as they suddenly heard the excited calls of “hey guys!” behind them and froze, sharing a humorous, soft look before turning around to see Chip, Colin, Richard and Brad walking in their direction.

Ryan smiled an indulgent smile at them, Greg scowled but nobody paid attention to him anyway, not when Ryan was _smiling_ , and ten minutes later they were all sitting in the hotel restaurant, getting burgers and beer for dinner, toasting to New York and fun and life.

Still high on the run, and Ryan, more particularly the image of Ryan sucking him off, Greg was in a great mood, and didn’t even feel a tiny nick of annoyance as Colin came to sit next to him. While they ate Colin tried to make conversation about something or another in soft tones with him, apparently making up for something he had never even done, and Greg humoured him, talking, even laughing with him. _Everybody_ was pleasant right then, he felt, and he shared a look with Ryan that left him feeling cocky, one that said ‘see, I’m making friends with your little friend here, blow me again later and I might even hug him’ and Ryan looked a tad apprehensive but not too much, and they all laughed about some silly joke together, and the day was a good one, he thought. A great one even.

That night’s taping, his last one in New York, went along the same lines. Colin laughed along with him now, gave him an occasional pat or hug, and to his surprise he found he could stand it quite well. They were all being rowdy, using so many “fucks” and sexual references that he felt the urge to check if Tony wasn’t in the studio, and when he shared his suspicion with Ryan he cracked him up, earning them a raised eyebrow from Clive.

They ended the show to a standing ovation and all got completely wasted afterwards; singing in the streets of New York at the top of their lungs, sloppily peeing on a street corner. When they made it back to the hotel somewhere near the early morning, Ryan followed him into his hotel room without question, and when he left again only an hour later because he had promised to bring Colin to the airport, Greg wasn’t annoyed at all, even saying “tell him I said bye”.

He ended up sleeping in late, and then went out to lunch with Clive (who proclaimed to be terribly suspicious of the current bounce in Greg’s step, and when Greg told him “that’s the bounce of a man who’s being fucked” shook his head and ordered another whiskey). Eventually he told him about Ryan, trying to be blasé about the whole thing, but Clive looked at him with all-too-knowing eyes over the edge of his glass, not asking anything but looking for the world as if he felt _sympathy_ , of all things. Eventually he did admit to being bummed the tapings were over, and Clive agreed whole-heartedly, looking soft for a moment, distressed, and Greg realized he wasn’t the only one who’d rather stay and live in their little bubble of Whose Line, all about the laughs and smiles and good times…

When Ryan came back he joined them at the bar, and soon they left Clive to it and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, fucking until it hurt, until it felt like there wasn’t one muscle in their bodies that wasn’t strained and drained, until they had heard every sound from the other, felt every touch, and then they napped, briefly, not holding each other, before fucking again, one last time, always one last time.

In the end Greg needed to hurry, and with nothing but a promise of the next year in Ryan’s eyes, he left the room, and Ryan. He felt an immense sense of annoyance as the cab drove away with him in it. At the airport, he spend the two hours waiting for his flight smoking one cigarette after another, imagining how the last taping must be going, who Ryan was playing with, who he was touching.

Eventually he forced himself to stop thinking about it and just closed his eyes, listening to the comforting sound of the over-head speakers calling the passengers of one flight or another to the gate. He knew that in all, New York for him became the time and place where things came true, and he’d never forget it for that.

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

He had looked forward to the London tapings for over a full year.

To say he counted the weeks, or even the months until the late summer would have been an overstatement. He had a quite good life, performing in a different club every night, fucking a different guy every night if he wanted to, which he more often than not did, the second year of his marriage hardly as sacred as the first.

But they still were fourteen long months, in which he saw Clive a couple times (‘How are you?’ Clive would ask, and when he shook his head he would wordlessly put his hand on his shoulder and order him another drink).

Occasionally he did long for something as close to him as Clive, and so he kissed him after exiting the bar one night, wonderfully familiar and pleasing and Clive must have longed for it too because they ended up in a hotel (‘completely sleazy,’ Clive had noted in between undressing him with precise, small movements and Greg had agreed) and kissed and touched for a long time before having awkward sex, afterwards sharing a drained hug.

He saw Josie quite often; she came to his shows, or he to hers, and he even joined her and Richard at the Comedy Store Players regularly. She told him he looked like he was in love on occasion, and when he looked at his (empty) ring finger demonstratively, meaning ‘I have a wife’ (but knowing he had stopped fooling her a long time ago as well), she just laughed. She said she was looking forward to the new tapings as well, and in the end it was her, even before his agent, who called him to tell him the date of the first taping that year in late August, his heart making a jump in his chest.

He _had_ heard from Ryan, twice. Once a couple days after Christmas, when Ryan had called on a creaky, rustling line from a phone booth somewhere in Seattle, wishing him happy holidays with a wonderful smile in his voice, and they had traded stories and jokes for over half an hour until Ryan’s spare change ran out and he started shivering so hard Greg could hear his teeth clattering through the crappy phone line and had ordered him to go in and get warm.

The second time Ryan had called from his home, late at night for him and in mid-morning for Greg, sounding drunk, maybe high but mainly aroused, with a low, raspy voice and a self-admitted hard-on. Greg, realizing that Ryan sounded more wretched than in high spirits, but hard at the mere tone of Ryan’s voice anyway, was trailing his hand over his stomach towards his pants before he even realized what he has doing. His wife was just in the other room, for one thing. But the thought of Ryan, alone in a bedroom somewhere, thinking of _him_ while getting off, was enough to get him harder than he had been in weeks, to give him more pleasure than he ever felt with someone he just screwed for the heck of it.

In all, it was the strangest kind of phone sex he had ever had. Ryan was dead sexy on the phone, hell, he had been getting off on a fantasy about the man for months, he probably just needed to say “god Greg, I want to fuck you now” to make him come, but he also sounded sad, at the edge of tears even, so he was in turn replying with “yes I’m touching myself, fuck I’m so hard” and “Ryan? Hey, you’ll… it’s all right, ok?”

In the end, as he heard Ryan come while moaning his name, he came too, the sound enough to pull him into a violent orgasm, the phone momentarily forgotten next to him. A couple minutes later Ryan ended their half-conversation, saying he’d be able to sleep now, and Greg was left to wonder for the rest of the day what could have prompted him to call like that.

He tried calling him back a couple days later, but got Ryan’s wife on the line, ‘Pat,’ he remembered, who sounded like she didn’t have a clue who he was, or where Ryan was, shushing a nagging child and promising to give a message he was sure would never be delivered.

Right after he had heard the show dates from Josie he tried again, but when it was a female “Hello!” who answered the phone three tries in a row he stopped calling.

So when he was waiting in the parking lot, the one and the same where Ryan had stood waiting for him a year an a half ago, enjoying the slowly fading heat of the day and smoking a cigarette, he had no idea if Ryan even knew he had tried to call him, no idea if he was all right even. He felt slightly on edge, but just slightly, telling himself it didn’t matter _that_ much (of course it did) but quite trusting (still) in the sense that it would turn out all right in the end, one way or another.

When Ryan’s cab pulled into the parking lot he could feel the tension in his body rise, and he threw his half-smoked cigarette to the floor, crushing it with his foot. He wanted to walk out of the shadow, but then decided against it and leaned against the wall, straining his eyes to see Ryan’s expression as he stepped out of the cab and looked around.

As soon as he caught Ryan’s gaze, Ryan’s polite smile intended for the cabdriver (and maybe because he was back in London?) became a genuine, full-blown one, and Greg stepped up, a little. Ryan paid the driver, and then turned to him, walking fast, opening his arms, and then he was pulled in an embrace, a hard one; he could feel Ryan shaking (or maybe it was him). Ryan’s scent was enough to make him shiver, Ryan’s whispered “Greg…” and warm breaths next to his cheek enough to make him want to turn his head and kiss him but he didn’t, he just held on, hands gripping Ryan’s jacket, head buried in his neck.

Ryan hugged him back just as hard and when they finally stepped apart, both not that steady on their feet all of a sudden, Ryan smiled again, such a real and beautiful smile. He seemed tired, Greg could see, a dullness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, more lines around his eyes, but his smile was there and so he smiled back, the both of them locked in what was a greeting and a memory at the same time.

When they heard a cough behind them they stepped apart, and Ryan greeted Clive, Richard and Tony in turn, never really breaking contact with Greg, and when they all headed inside to do the show, Ryan smiled at him again, a small, secret smile, full of promise and possibility this time, and he felt elated, pure, actually completely happy in that moment for the first time in a year.

 

The both of them were scheduled for six days of tapings, a two day break, and then one more taping, and on that evening it felt like it would be an eternity. Greg felt himself shiver with sexual anticipation every time he came even near Ryan, every touch sending a bolt of lightning through him, every look making him feel as if he was stripped naked, waiting to be pounced on.

While he was expecting to do the show on automatic pilot, just roll through the scenes until he could find the nearest flat surface and push Ryan against it, it turned out to be unexpectedly great to be taping again. Like a breath after a deep dive, or a cigarette when he didn’t know he wanted one until the exact moment he lit up, every snide comment exchanged with Clive, every joke with Tony, every song from Josie, every smile shared with Ryan… It instantly made him feel more alive, more substantial.

The audience ate it up too; he was on a roll, getting claps and whistles for everything he did, even outshining Ryan, who seemed strangely subdued for one evening.

Afterwards, he was hugging Clive, and Josie, and then there was a strong grip on his elbow. Josie covered for them by distracting the producers, and gone they were, half-running over the dark summer streets of London, grinning whenever their eyes met, a tingling and heavy sense of eminent explosion between them, and when they burst through Greg’s hotel room door he barely managed to push it back into the lock before they were falling towards the bed, already tangled in each other, moving, groaning, kissing.

They had fierce sex, every touch enough to up the tension until it was nearly unbearable, the feeling of Ryan’s dick inside of him making him lose it, and Ryan came before he did, trying to give him one more thrust, using his hand to milk him, and then he was coming too, his body spasming long and hard, reveling in the weight of Ryan’s body on his.

It took them a while to catch their breath, but as he lay there, watching Ryan breathing heavily, his face flushed, eyes glassy, he could feel the first stirrings of arousal coming back, and he knew they’d be having sex again as soon as possible.

They smoked a cigarette together, quietly, Greg seeing in the practised move Ryan used to light up that it was a continuous habit for him too now, a constant reminder of pain expressed without even thinking about it, and he wasn’t sure how he felt knowing that.

Ryan politely ignored his beginning erection until he stubbed the cigarette out and then told him, eyes on the black ashtray, “It’s been a year. More than that.” and then paused, ending on “I wish we could have… more”. Greg, a little startled, looked up, and said “I’m up for it if you are” motioning to his half-hard dick, cracking a joke Ryan didn’t laugh with. He knew he was supposed to say something back, something profound, but he didn’t have a fucking clue what.

Eventually he just leaned in and touched his lips to Ryan’s slightly chapped ones, in a kiss that was almost chaste, as gentle as smoke, as profoundly addictive as nicotine. Ryan kept his eyes open, and so did he, staring up into two eyes too close to see clearly, only seeing green, so very green. He had been lost long before then, and perhaps he had known that, but that moment was when he realized it in its full potential. He, who always went for what he wanted, had longed and waited a full year for this. Ryan moved a hand to touch his cheek, and he moved his own hand to lie on top of Ryan’s, entwining their fingers.

They moved again soon after, back to the territory they were both familiar with, Greg dragging his nails over Ryan’s nipples until he screamed, Ryan leaving bite marks on his neck. But something had changed, something inexplicable, something that caused Greg to hold Ryan in his arms, even after, and cause Ryan to burrow close for once, placing soft kisses on Greg’s neck.

When they fell asleep it was peaceful, both of them too sated to move any time soon, and when Greg stirred around dawn he woke Ryan by going under the sheets and using his tongue to coax his erection back to life. He gave him a drawn-out kind of blow-job, bringing him to the edge and back again several times, knowing it was costing him all his might not to move and do something about it himself, and when Ryan finally came he was one quivering mass.

Greg was hard too, but, for once, he found he didn’t care that much about getting off, and he fell asleep again alongside Ryan, his arm slung over his chest, their fingers just touching.

 

\---

As soon as he opens the door he’s struck again by the clearness of the air, the slightly salty tang to every breath and every gust of wind, the familiar feeling of sand under his feet. He’s parked maybe twenty feet from the edge, and he closes the car door behind him with a certain finality. His fingers linger on the cold metal for a moment until he lets go and then he walks, slowly, through the sand, his mind strangely clear, both dreading and enjoying every step.

When he stands there, on the edge, his feet firmly planted on the ground but his body leaning into nothing but air, stretching to see the white foam of the waves, imagining to hear them crashing on the razor sharp rocks, he cynically imagines he really should feel inclined to jump now. Instead, it’s cold, dark, the flickering of some vague light reflecting on the waves makes him feel nauseous, and loudly he swears a couple times, the wind carrying any sound away. He wants a cigarette, right then, so much even that he turns around, jogs the couple paces to the car, opens the door, rips the packet from his coat pocket, but then, before lighting one, swings it through the air, over the cliff. When he imagines he hears the packet hit the water with a sloppy thud, he knows he’s lost it.

He leans on the car for a couple minutes more, taking a cigarette break without the cigarette, (not) imagining that Ryan is there with him, the older Ryan now, with the serious face, sad eyes and a smile that never gets smiled anymore and he feels like screaming something or not saying a word again but instead gets back in the car, leans back in the seat and rubs a hand over his eyes, suddenly tired, suddenly broken, fighting tears that won’t come anyway.

In the end he starts the engine back up and drives, further on the winding sea road.

 

\---

They didn’t stray from each others sides that day, from the shared shower (in which Greg got off, but Ryan didn’t, claiming he was spent), to the delayed breakfast, to walking through London in the afternoon with no real purpose in mind, they just wandered together, doing whatever felt right.

‘Maybe he thought Colin coming back would fuck everything up again,’ Greg wondered, but he somehow knew that wouldn’t be true anymore. He had fucked at least two dozen guys in the past year, he didn’t truly care if Ryan had been doing the same to Colin. They were there now, and that was what mattered.

In the end they went to pick Colin up at the airport together, and he could tell Ryan was nervous, smoking one cigarette after another. When Colin walked in the hall he hugged Ryan first, and then Greg, but he didn’t look as profoundly devoted, as almost childishly attached to Ryan as he had done a year ago. And Ryan, he didn’t look like anything at all, only pained maybe, and as they were back in the taxi, gently inquiring into each others lives, Greg suddenly understood that Colin had left L.A. in the past year, had left Ryan.

He also saw that, whatever had happened between them, they both looked the worse for it, their sadness tangible in the air. Until then, he had never realised he derived a certain calm from being around that steady foundation of friendship Ryan and Colin shared, and it left him feeling inclined to make it all better again, in a way. For a moment he wanted to push them back together, he had always known he could share if that meant getting them both back, seeing Ryan’s face light up, hearing Colin’s gentle laugh again. But then he decided against it, knowing Colin wouldn’t have left without a reason. He only wondered what that could have been.

When it was Colin who came to visit him in his dressing room, a good twenty minutes before the show, he wasn’t even surprised.

“Hello Greg,” Colin said, as if they hadn’t seen each other just the hour before, and he grinned in return. “What can I do for you Colin?” He knew he sounded cynical but part of him meant it, and he was surprised to see that Colin seemed to be looking straight through all the cynicism too. But then again, he was talking to the man who has been dealing with Ryan for over a decade already, and he shouldn’t have been surprised really.

When Colin took a chair it was not because he was being cocky, but because he honestly believed he was welcome there, and Greg was momentarily stunned at that, knowing he had never done much of anything that would indicate so.

When Colin, eyes (guiltily, could it be?) on the floor, asked him “how’s Ryan?” he thought he might want to either hit, or pity the guy. Colin looked up at him then, eyes brown and too freaking gentle and soft to be right there, to be a comedian, to be the friend of Ryan. He _must_ yell too, Greg thought, he must hit things every once in a while, he must be imperfect, but part of him doubted that right then.

When he proposed “you want to get a cigarette?” he could see the physical relief in Colin’s eyes, see him relax, and when Colin smiled, shyly, it made him feel like he had done something right too, for once.

Their cigarette break was a quiet one, but a different kind of silence than the ones he had with Ryan. Colin was unexpecting, it seemed, wanting nothing more than company, and it was easy, comfortable to be like that.

Just a couple minutes later they were being called to the stage, and he put his hand on Colin’s shoulder while walking over there. They sat down, and applause and lights and a couple words by Clive later he was being introduced as “The all-American boy, Greg Proops,” and he knew it was Clive’s idea of a joke so he smiled, a crooked smile, a smile for the people that didn’t know him, or know how rarely he tended to smile…

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

“The all-American _tall_ boy, Ryan Stiles…” As always, Greg zoned out after Ryan was introduced, instead looking at the audience, eyeing Clive, getting ready for the next game.

Ryan was mostly paired with Colin that evening, and he watched them as closely as he could, trying to figure out what had happened between them in the past year, but both Ryan and Colin seemed incredibly professional, not letting any of their previous unease around each other seep through. Instead, they were off again, filling out each others sentences, cracking each other up, and he knew that the one thing that seemed to transcend anything personal for the two of them was the stage. A shared passion, and it was in the dedication to it that they seemed to have found each other again.

He got to play a few games with Ryan too, and was glad to feel that their old routine seemed to be back; they walked synchronised, talked, laughed, touched and hugged, and he could feel Clive looking at them with something of a pleased expression in his eyes.

After the taping, as always, they went to a bar. It was Clive who had picked this time around, and the atmosphere was quiet, the occasional drunk by the bar, but the booths were nice, and the drinks too.

Ryan took a seat next to him, and they sat close, in a sort of comfortable way he had come to associate with Ryan, never too close to crowd you, always close enough to reach out and touch.

He was talking to Tony, asking him something about the Wilshire Comedy Festival, when he overheard Colin ask Clive “So why did you quit law to go into comedy? It seems a little… unusual.” Greg completely ignored his conversation with Tony and looked up, sure of the answer but curious as to what Clive would say. Clive locked eyes with him, briefly, seemed to be looking for words but not finding them.

So Greg spoke up, casually “It’s because he was tired of being a closet-case Colin. Getting crushes on opposing council gets old after a while”.

Colin opened his mouth and looked from the one to the other, not quite sure what to believe. Richard was smiling, not taken aback in the least, Tony was outright laughing, probably more because he supported the profanity that any reality behind it. Ryan looked away, and then the moment passed, Colin going over to the tale of how he had wanted to become a biologist or something. Greg looked at Ryan, who had noted what had just happened, and had guessed by the slight blush on Clive’s cheeks a lot more than the answer to Colin’s question. He seemed faintly surprised, but not much, his eyes momentarily widening and then he was getting up, taking the pack of cigarettes from on the table with him.

Greg didn’t scramble up, thinking he’d give him a head start, but then eventually he did go outside, to find Ryan leaning against a wall, smoking. He leaned next to him, and then lit a cigarette of his own. After a bit, Ryan turned, and said “Clive?” an amused confirmation in his voice.

Greg just shrugged. So what. After a moment he clearly said “a couple times, yeah” and Ryan nodded. He wasn’t going to make excuses for screwing Clive, and Ryan seemed to know that.

Deciding to turn the tables, he asked “Colin?” and he could see Ryan struggle, biting down and reformulating words. “Colin… Colin is not…” Greg stepped closer, breaking up whatever Ryan was trying to formulate, making him look at him. After a moment, Ryan spoke again, his expression guarded “He left. Went back to Canada.”

“I know,” Greg replied, a prompt for him to speak on, but Ryan didn’t, and then, before it became too painful, he quickly admitted to having slept with Richard once too, a couple years ago after a failed audition for them both. It made Ryan laugh, and then he laughed too, and stubbed his cigarette against the wall.

When they went back inside both Colin and Clive looked up a little too fast not to have been waiting for their return, and it amused him too.

They got back to their hotel room rather early, and Ryan let him undress him, with slow and soft movements. It was the first time he could recall they’d drawn it out like this, drawn it out until they were both standing naked in a half-dark room, looking at each other, running fingers over shoulders and arms and cheeks and he knew he was blushing under Ryan’s gaze but he didn’t care too much.

When they moved up into a kiss it was almost like a first one again, soft and tender but with a rapid fall into sensual this time, their naked bodies aligning, the thrill pure and real.

Ryan let him take him that night, and he did his best to draw it out into something incredible, something that drove him to the edge of emotional when he looked at Ryan, something that made their eyes lock when they moved together.

It was he who held Ryan when they were silent again, when they were spent, but he knew Ryan wasn’t sleeping, neither were, staring, eyes wide open, into the dark.

It could have been uneasy between them, he thought, preset, but it wasn’t, instead it _crushed_ him inside and when he held on to Ryan harder, pressed him closer, he felt his embrace returned.

 

Even if he had once thought they were being discreet, it was completely ruined when Tony knocked on their door the next morning and it was Ryan who opened it, dressed in nothing but a towel, and Greg sleepily yelled from the bed “who the fuck is it?”

Tony was a great guy, but never one to shut up, and by noon everyone knew they had spent the night together. Greg found himself not caring, and Ryan didn’t seem to either, so when they walked through the hotel lobby and, in passing the producers, he grasped Ryan’s hand, pulled him closer and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, it was just to piss them of and to make Ryan smile, not because he actually had _wanted_ to. Not at all.

They went into the city, ‘effectively avoiding Colin,’ Greg thought, but he was too busy enjoying being there with Ryan to really give it any more thought. They both had seen the major sights of London already, he a lot more than Ryan, so they ended up just wandering again, through the parks, the streets, taking the subway (“the _tube_ ,” Greg corrected him) to a random stop. And in truth, he had never enjoyed London quite as much as in that fashion, with Ryan, without any sort of plan.

They walked around in the “Queen’s Gardens” (as pointed out by Ryan, there were many, many puns on that one), and he noted that, after New York, he had a hard time being in a park with Ryan without wanting to push him to a tree and do ungodly things to him. When he told him as much, Ryan laughed and asked “why don’t you?”

Twenty minutes later they emerged from the woods, Ryan straightening his clothes, Greg fishing for an ivy leaf that had gotten caught in his hair. He decided he really, really liked parks.

They walked on to browse at an crowded outdoors antique market, stopped a moment to listen to a jazz-player (he took Ryan’s hand, briefly), and then stopped at a bridge to look over at the Thames.

“You like living here?” Ryan asked, eyes on the outline of the city.

“I do…” he smiled, looking at the people crossing the street, the cars on the left side, the occasional string of conversation they could pick up…

“You’re not coming back to San Francisco?” There was a real, important question underlying that remark, and Greg tried his best not to hear it. “No… there’s more work here… Plus, Jen… She likes it here”

“Hmm,” Ryan nodded, and they looked over the water, seeing the sun’s reflection on it. “Yeah,” he said, following Ryan’s eyes to the reflection of them both, leaning on the railing, in the water.

Soon after they took a cab back to the studios, and when they arrived Greg felt like they had been in a different world, for just a while at least. Colin was waiting for them again, and so was Mike, booming out as soon as he saw them “Greg, my boy!” and wrapping him in a bear hug. Colin was genuinely grinning at the sight and Greg, from somewhere in Mike’s arms, found himself returning the grin.

Where the first two taping were always exciting and new, and the last one a blast, everything in between was on the edge of normal, a quickly-formed habit. Greg found that tonight’s cast was among his favourite combinations. He adored Mike, had known him for a long time, and he was comfortable and fun to play off to. Colin added a little softness and insanity, Ryan structure and the occasional hug, and when he was sparring with Clive that evening he was also smiling, broadly.

Near the end of the taping, he noted a difference though. Ryan didn’t look much at him, at first he had thought it was because he was tired, because his thoughts were elsewhere, but when he followed his gaze he was intently focusing on Colin. Colin didn’t seem to know it, returning his looks with a kind smile of his own, but Greg did.

In a vague part of his mind he had been looking forward to more sex that night, maybe the same soul-shattering sex they had had the night before, or, more comfortably, maybe a quickie in one of London’s alleys, with Ryan panting warm and hot in his ear and the thrill of being caught.

When Ryan cornered him right after the taping and said he was going to go somewhere with Colin, he had pretended not to care one way or another and said “sure,” actually certain he didn’t really care. Colin stopped him in the hallway soon after, looking troubled, maybe to tell him that it wouldn’t end up in sex, that he had nothing to worry about, but when he stopped him from saying anything, he surprised himself by lashing out, saying “Colin, don’t fucking start apologising before you’ve done anything, go screw him first and then come back here with a sorry, okay?” Colin just blinked, but seemed to have gotten the message as Greg walked away, closing his dressing room door behind him.

He took his cigarettes, lighting one right away and headed out, already hidden in the shadows as he saw Ryan and Colin leave the building, talking in low tones to each other, smiling and touching each other in that caring, familiar way they had on the stage. He saw them leave with something of uncertainty inside of him, wondering whether they would sleep together, wondering if he wanted them to or not.

 

\---

 

He pulls up along the beach and he knows he’s there, he’s finally _there_ , and he can hardly grasp it.

He sees it all again now, maybe too desperately, the both of them standing in the rain, the sea nearby, and so was love right then, so was something real and wonderful between them they could have had, if they hadn’t gone on to fuck it up, time and time again. He sees now how they continuously tried to ruin and destroy what was between them, when they had never tried to even create it in the first place, and he thinks it funny that all he ever had hoped for was a one-night stand and he got something too large for either of them to handle.

They never stopped to do much more than feel and even that was repressed in anger and sex and smokes and whatever they could get away with, because love would have been a too pure concept for whatever fucked up thing they had between them, and lust didn’t do it either, maybe need would have been the word, but obviously it wasn’t all that either because he survived, he got around _without_ Ryan, he was still there, breathing, walking when Ryan…

In truth, Ryan had left years ago, but lines of permitable affection still tended to blur, and they still fell back on what could be between them, and they had never been perfect but he had never felt anything as close to it either.

And he had always _wanted_ , wanted Ryan so fucking much, and now he’s willing to see that, willing to see that Ryan probably did too, that two people just couldn’t be as touched as they were and not refer to it as something undying, something earth-shattering. But they never admitted to it, not even when they were yelling at each other on a beach in the fucking pouring rain, not even when the sand was everywhere, wet, and cold and they could have changed their entire world in that moment but they didn’t, they didn’t and suddenly he’s crying for the past and the future and what they never had, and especially for what they did have, every moment too real again, too perfect, too painful.

He doesn’t remember getting out of the car, he’s just suddenly on his knees in the wet sand, pounding on it, beating away at his anger, and he’s crying hot tears, the wind stinging his eyes, his breath hitching, his chest breaking, he swears he can feel it and he goes dangerously close to the edge, wishing himself over it now, swearing the whole world away until there’s nothing left but Ryan, only Ryan, and he gets lost, lost in Ryan’s eyes, lost until he’s remembering again, strings of tiny flashes and memories of tainted and perfect things between them.

When everything comes back into focus it’s quiet, cold, and he’s still on the beach, still in the day and he wishes he was one of those people who could escape if they wanted to but he’s never been that, always the one to feel every slither of the pain, to burn away with the memory of every part of it.

\---

 

Eventually he went to a bar with Mike and Tony that night, entered in some dare of who could drink who under the table, and in the end he was so drunk it took both Mike and a hastily called Clive to get him back into his hotel room and into bed. He slept, or dosed for a couple hours, and when he woke up it was to crawl to the bathroom and throw up in the toilet, multiple times.

Near morning it was Clive again who came by, with aspirin, water and a wet towel, and more sympathy than he cared to deal with. Greg questioned him, knowing he wouldn’t lie, and when Clive told him that he hadn’t seen Ryan but that Colin had come back to his room, it did nothing but to make him feel more conflicted. In a way, he had _wanted_ Ryan to sleep with Colin. He understood where it would have come from, and knew how to deal with that. And they would have gotten over it easily, at one point Ryan would have needed something from Colin he couldn’t give, and they would have had sex again, gravitated towards each other. He knew, because it was what he would have done. It was familiar.

But they had just a couple days left and he didn’t feel like he could go back to daily life again, not without knowing that… whatever they had wasn’t... real. Not when Ryan said things that started with “I wish” when they lay curled up together late at night. Not when they could have sex that felt fucking intimate, soul-tearing. Not when it was… _that_.

He looked away from Clive and uttered a small “fuck,” letting his hand limply hit the white-tiled bathroom floor. He wanted to say something, about how life was fucked up now, how he couldn’t take it anymore, but instead he just swore again, looking at Clive,”fuck.” Clive sat down next to him then, on the floor, in the bathroom smelling of sweat and puke, and held him, briefly, and maybe it was because he felt too bad to fight over anything, or maybe because he had needed it, Greg let him.

Once the pills took hold, he felt better, and Clive made him take a shower, saying “you positively stink Greg, do us all a favour” but insisted he kept the door open, just in case, adding “you don’t look too good”. He did, finding a certain solace in the hot running water (the image of Ryan in there with him, just a day ago, too fresh, too real) and when he came out, he found Clive asleep on his bed, snoring softly.

He lay down next to him, not too close, and closed his eyes too, willing his pounding headache away. Eventually he must have fallen asleep again, because when he woke it was because someone was knocking on the door, and Clive was getting up to open it.

He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to face anyone yet. He heard murmurs, not what was actually said, and there was the sound of the door closing, a movement in the mattress, and a large, bony hand touching his shoulder, and he was mentally choosing between “fuck off” and “God Ryan, can’t a man have a hang-over around here?” but ended up not saying anything at all. As he (carefully, god his head hurt) opened his eyes, he looked into Ryan’s, a Ryan who was looking uncharacteristically serious, and he avoided his gaze.

They kept it up for while, not talking. Ryan moved to sit on the couch. Greg noted it was sunny outside, and could hear the vague noise of a TV playing in the room next door. He swallowed a couple times, wondering what had happened to the bottle of water Clive had brought. Eventually, deciding to stay on a course where he had experience with, he stated “you’re wondering whether I fucked Clive.” But Ryan, eyeing him for a moment, lit a cigarette, the smoke tantalisingly curling towards the ceiling, and said “No.”

“Oh,” he said, mentally cursing, and held out his hand for Ryan to throw him the lighter. He lit a cigarette of his own, finding comfort in the familiar smell and feel of it between his lips. He took a drag, and then asked “you don’t care?”

Ryan looked him over then, a quick flash of eyes, unconsciously playing with the cigarette between his fingers, and said “I do.” And after a pause, a pained look in his eyes “You know I didn’t fuck Colin, if that’s...”

Greg stopped him, his need for the truth greater than he thought, and asked “you love him though, why don’t you… make up, whatever.”

Ryan looked torn, obviously struggling with the answer, but as he looked at Greg, perhaps seeing that the answer wouldn’t matter, not really, smiled, a small, sad smile and said “I do. But he left.”

“He still wants you.” He knew he was stating the obvious, but he needed to let Ryan know he could screw Colin, if he absolutely needed to. That he was more scared of the case scenario where he didn’t, and they had to start considering the why of neither of them being very inclined to find happiness anywhere else.

Ryan was intently smoking his cigarette, seemingly thinking something he might not want, and when he spoke it was soft, his face closed, unreadable. “I want you.”

Greg felt his breath hitch, and nodded then, uncertainly “ok.”

“It’s not…” Ryan stated, obviously serious, obviously feeling as torn as he was.

“Don’t care,” Greg said as he calmly moved towards Ryan, to straddle him on the small faded pink hotel couch.

Ryan looked away, sad for a moment more, and then smiled, saying “thought you had a hang-over.”

Greg smirked, feeling the consistent pounding in his head all too clearly, and said “yes, make it go away.” So Ryan kissed him, hungrily, his hands gripping in his hair, and he moaned, ready to fall into a tragedy or a disaster or whatever he and Ryan had, because it was the single most amazing addiction he had ever had.

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

The next two days of their London tapings were the hardest ones, he thought. He spent the night and most of the day in his hotel room, tangled up in Ryan, sometimes slowly moving together in a sweaty, unreserved kind of sex, sometimes just dozing together.

Ryan had, one way or another, gotten a hold of some joints, and he smoked them, liberally, losing himself in the depth of Ryan’s eyes as they had sex. They drank too, more than was good for either of them, but then again, they both had a habit of doing so anyway. Sometimes Colin would join them, sitting silently in a corner, drinking until he would tell stories, most of them about performing, jokes, stages, and Greg found himself wanting to _hug_ the man. He never did, because Ryan was there, eyes dark and clouded with alcohol, lust, and something he never dared to define, and so, once Colin was gone, they ended up in bed again, a never-ending circle of losing themselves in whatever they could get lost into.

Colin had come to talk to him the day after. He hadn’t said anything about where he and Ryan had gone, and Greg had liked that. Instead, they’d both smoked a cigarette, and talked about improv, Canada, and then, Ryan. Colin said that he had needed to leave, for his son, for himself. That L.A. killed him. When Greg said that he loved L.A., always had, Colin looked at him with a flash of familiarity. “Ryan did too.” And he never knew if that was supposed to be some kind of blessing from Colin, or if it even meant anything at all, because then there was a show to do again, an audience waiting for them both, a producer ushering them onto the stage.

At the start of their two-day break, Ryan and Greg had been dozing on the bed together. It was late-morning but they hadn’t gone to sleep until some time after sunrise, so they were both still tired, unshaven, each sleeping on an end of the bed with a valley of twisted sheets, an ashtray and an errant pillow between them.

When Clive knocked Greg grudgingly got up to answer the door, hung-over and half-naked, fully expecting to be invited to one thing or another he could say no to. Instead, Clive smiled at him and asked him what their plans were for the next days. Greg looked behind him, to where Ryan was asleep, silently. They had been too caught up in not thinking about anything, locked up in their hotel room and in each other to know a reply to that, but when he looked back and shrugged, Clive was positively _beaming_. He reached in his beige trench coat-pocket, and handed him a set of keys. Greg looked confused, but Clive just laughed, and said “England is more than a hotel room; I suggest you get out of here and enjoy yourselves…”

“What…?” Greg asked, but Clive gave him a quick, fond pat on the shoulder and left.

Turning the keys between his fingers, he eyed them for a moment, considering the possibilities, and then set out to wake Ryan, saying “guess what Clive came by to drop off…”

They showered quickly, put a change of clothes in a plastic bag, and went down to the parking lot, where they found Clive’s ford with a little yellow note attached to it. He read the small, curvy handwriting with a smile “Greg, do anything to my car, or worse, _in_ my car and I’ll kill you.” and at Ryan’s unbelieving expression, he told him that Clive had suggested they should get out of their room and, for a change, have sex in public somewhere, to which Ryan laughed and said “let’s go then!”.

As Greg got in the car, to the left of Ryan, he made a mental note to hug Clive the next time he saw him. Multiple times. And hard.

They drove off the parking lot with a loud whoop, and then navigated out of the city, Ryan cursing whenever they crossed the highway, claiming he would never get used to the whole ‘left side of the road’ deal in his life. Greg had a vague idea to drive south and towards the sea, and so they did, over small roads, changing the radio station from classical to rock, cranking it up to its highest level, singing along as loud as they could, opening the windows to let in the warm outside air.

In the late afternoon they neared the sea, the occasional vision of blue water and blurry sand visible between the trees, and Ryan’s eyes started glittering. A couple miles further, Greg parked the car and they ran out into the dunes, shoes getting filled with sand, breathing in the salty air. Eventually they stopped, letting themselves flop down in the sand, gasping for breath, staring up at the clear, blue sky. Then suddenly Ryan’s face was in his field of vision and he was being kissed, thoroughly, on a warm and perfect beach and he laughed, for the first time in days again they both laughed, and they were free, for that moment in time they were free.

They stayed there, on the dune, to watch a pink and soft sunset, shoulder by shoulder, until the sky turned into a velvety blue, with the first flickers of starts shining through.

They were both relaxing; Greg was smoking a cigarette, calm, while Ryan was lying on his back in the sand, looking up at the stars. “They’re taping the show now” Ryan suddenly spoke, a softness to his tone. Greg smiled around his cigarette “yeah.”

“How long do you think it’ll go on?” Ryan asked.

He laughed, cynically “I’d say, don’t get attached to anything.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, looking him over out of the corner of his eye.

Like always, he wondered later about what they had and hadn’t said, but that wasn’t until they were checked into a small bed and breakfast, right by the coast, and they had had sex, fiercely, passionately, and Ryan had fallen asleep against his shoulder, the moonlight playing in his hair.

He didn’t know if this was something he cared to define. He didn’t want to, not then. It was too good, too short. So he pressed a light kiss on Ryan’s head and closed his eyes, hoping for sleep to come swiftly.

 

\---

He wanders around the dunes, shivering, there’s a cold wind, looking for something, some trace of Ryan, some remembrance, but he doesn’t find it. He can’t feel Ryan’s touch anymore as his hands are forced into fists now, hidden deep inside his coat pockets. He can’t recall Ryan’s kiss as the wind, blowing in his face, leaves a salt taste on his lips.

He walks towards the shoreline, drawn to the constant shimmer of the water, blinking at the memory of Ryan in that water, on a pale, warm night.

He unexpectedly feels deeply foolish for coming here, on some sort of mission towards the past. He tells himself it didn’t mean that much, not really, but then he knows he’s lying, lying to himself. And he wishes he had something to hit, to smoke, to drink, sex, anything to make him forget, and he knows he could have chosen that, he could have easily found someone to sleep with, easily spent his day in a pub somewhere, getting so drunk he couldn’t remember his own name. But at the end of the day, he _wanted_ to feel this miserable. Needed it. He had never let himself want anything as much as he had wanted Ryan, he knew that now, and so he needed to feel it, feel the end of it, the loss of something he had defined his capacity for emotion by for years.

He doesn’t even know if Ryan felt anything close to the absolute need for him as he did. If he was just some sort of way to pass the time or if it was real. He never asked, not because of some strange form of pride, but because it honestly never entered his mind to _ask_. Deep down, he always felt like he knew already, like Ryan’s touch and kiss and dick told him everything he had ever needed to know, were a destiny by themselves. And maybe that’s his biggest failure, he thinks, being so lost in having the moment and chasing away the future, that eventually he fucked it up for them both.

He walks too close to the waterline, drenching his shoes, feeling the cold shock of water soaking his socks. He finds a certain solace in the sound of the sea and wind, the white flush of waves crashing on the shore. There’s shells, half-buried under glittering, wet sand, reflecting moonlight, daring him to touch them, catch them, but he steps over them, feeling too old, too jaded to resort to something as comforting and childish. He’s long lost the ability to look at the moon and wonder, and he wonders if the last slither of that went with Ryan.

Eventually, frozen to the bone, he goes back to the car, and numbly drives over to where the bed and breakfast still exists. It has a different name now, he sees. Different owners probably as well. But it’s still there, and as he checks in he catches a glimpse of himself in the glass door. His face is pale, his glasses dirty, red-rimmed eyes, his clothes have sand on them, his shoes are drenched. It isn’t until he gets out his credit card that the owner looks at him with somewhat of relief in his eyes.

He asks for a king-sized bed purely out of habit.

\---

 

They woke slowly from muddled, dark dreams, blinking against the sun. It was warm, even that early in the morning, the room stuffy, the both of them uncomfortably sweaty. Ryan got up to open to window, and noticed with a pleased tone that they could see the sea from there.

Ryan changed into shorts, he into dark jeans (‘it’s just that my legs aren’t _meant_ large bed), but Ryan intervened, saying that, if the British had gay resorts somewhere, surely it would be more noticeable.

He remembered that comment, thinking to ask Clive about it some time. Preferable at some fancy dinner.

They lay down in the sand again; it was really too hot to do anything else, dozing, idly joking about the people passing by, the weather, and, eventually the possible match of Tony and Josie.

“He’s a fucking pervert, you do know that right?” Greg laughed, lazily shielding his eyes from the sun to look over at Ryan.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like it.” Ryan argued.

Greg shook his head. “She hates him man.”

Ryan, a wicked expression in his eyes, leaned closer and said “Is that why I saw them kissing in the bathroom?”

“You did not!” Greg laughed, not really surprised.

“Yeah, one of the first shows I was on, during intermission.” Ryan continued.

Greg laughed, and then, curiously, asked “did you watch?”

“No!” Ryan snorted. And, after a pause “they closed the door”.

Greg laughed “pervert.”

Ryan looked at him with a grin, and guessed “you would have.” Greg nodded, smiling and lying through his teeth when he said “of course”.

As always, Ryan saw right through him, and he smiled, squinting up at the sun. They were quiet for a while, his thoughts running towards the afternoon, the light, the comfortable warmth.

When he saw Ryan eyeing him gently, he moved over and stole a lazy, heated kiss from him.

In the afternoon they walked to the local supermarket, Greg looking longingly at the large cartons of pistachio ice cream in the freezers, until Ryan laughed and bought one. They had to race it back to their room, by the time they made it in it was already melting badly, dripping over Greg’s fingers, leaving a trail of green-colored drops in the sand. Once in their room, Ryan reached out to get the carton, but ended up getting his hands covered in the sticky drops that had started appearing from under the lid. 

He looked at his fingers with something of a dare in his eyes, and Greg grinned, taking the bait. He moved in closer and licked Ryan’s hand. He took a drop of ice-cream with his finger, putting it on Ryan’s nose, and then stood on the tips of his toes to lick it off with a quick swipe of his tongue. Ryan laughed, pushed him on the bed, and pushed up Greg’s shirt to reveal his stomach. 

Greg grinned, knowing what he had in mind, but still squirmed when Ryan whipped a small handful of ice-cream on his stomach, and started licking it off with small, fluttering movements of his tongue. Greg yelped at the cold sensation but enjoyed it anyway, finding the combined sensation of the cold and Ryan’s tongue enough not to protest when Ryan moved up and gave him a cold and wet pistachio-flavoured kiss.

Turning the tables, he helped Ryan out of his shorts, dragged his fingers in the carton, and, with a devious expression on his face, sucked them off before lowering his mouth over Ryan’s dick. Ryan groaned at the sudden cold, and Greg smiled inwardly. He went back to the carton several times, keeping his mouth cold, Ryan on edge, and when he made Ryan come his taste was mixed deliciously with the cold sweetness of the ice…

Afterwards Ryan returned the favour, spreading ice-cream over Greg’s torso and nipples until his entire body felt chilled and sticky. When he finally went down on him it was slow, enjoying every trick of the cold combined with his body heat and the warmth outside. He came inside Ryan’s mouth, and then they both flopped back on the bed, sated, sticky. The air was heavy with the scent of pistachio and, more familiar, sweat and come, and he told Ryan he’d never be able to eat pistachio ice-cream the same way again.

In the end they had to strip the entire bed, suspiciously green-tinged spots all over the sheets, and take a shower to get the mess off before heading out into the heat again. Earlier on they had spotted a small fish restaurant; he ended up not eating too much that evening because his stomach could only agree with so much ice-cream, but the beer was delightful, and so was Ryan, laughing easily, seemingly totally relaxed.

After dinner they walked back near the water, looking at the waves. It was still oppressively warm, his shirt sticking to his frame, his hair damp with sweat. When Ryan, matter-of-factly, put his arm over his shoulder he didn’t pull back, and so they walked on like that. He reminded himself not to think of how utterly comfortable the weight of Ryan’s arm over him felt. How easily, naturally they walked in step with each other.

There had been a time where he was convinced that Ryan was just a one-time thing, almost unimaginable now. After a while it had become an addiction, something to thoughtlessly lose himself in. But now…

Walking side by side by the sea, each taking turn in humming their favourite sixties songs, he knew that they weren’t quite the norm as one-night stands went. At first sight, he had taken Ryan to be someone like himself, someone who easily went from one fuck to another, and although he still knew that to be true, Ryan seemed capable of something else too. More than what he had with his wife even, he suspected, judging from the cold look he had seen in Ryan’s eyes when he talked about her. He didn’t think on it long though, because that would have ruined Ryan’s perfectly good impression of ‘Light my fire’, guitar solo and all. Instead he laughed at Ryan, and sang along.

Once back in their room they both simultaneously reached towards the cigarettes on the nightstand (next to some discarded condoms, a couple empty beer bottles, and a forgotten ice-cream spoon still with some whitish liquid in it).

Ryan didn’t say anything and so he didn’t either. They were past the days were they would just share one cigarette; they both craved the nicotine, possibly Ryan even more than he did now, getting nervous when they couldn’t smoke right after a taping, instantly longing for it after sex.

They smoked silently, and Ryan turned the tv on, for the first time since they arrived there, and started flipping channels. He felt strangely beat by the humid heat of the day, and sagged back against the pillows, his eyes slowly slipping shut as he heard the sounds of some nonsensical British talk show getting fainter and fainter.

The next thing he felt was the soft touch of Ryan’s lips on his forehead, and his whisper of “goodnight”. He didn’t open his eyes, instead just allowed Ryan to pull him closer.

When he woke again it was because Ryan was opening the window, letting in some air in the completely dark and incredibly stuffy room. He had been sleeping in his clothes, and they were glued oppressively to his frame. He was shrugging them off, aiming them for the floor, when Ryan noted “we should go swimming.”

Not sure he had quite heard him, he asked “Wha…?” but Ryan was already stepping into his underwear, urging him to come along. “Fuck, Ryan, it’s the middle of the night…”

“So what?” Knowing there was no arguing with Ryan, he shrugged, picked up his shorts again but left his glasses and followed him out of the room.

The humid, pressing heat was possibly even worse outside. The sand felt loose and deceivingly safe under his feet, the occasional sharp shell or branch causing him to change his footing. Ryan walked ahead of him, talking about going swimming at some summer night back when he lived in Canada, his bare, lean torso looking pale and alien in the moonlight.

Once they reached the waterline, Ryan looked back at him with an inviting smile, flung his shorts in his general direction and walked straight ahead in the waves, completely naked. Greg, however, stayed near the shore, letting the waves crash over his bare feet and legs, slowly letting his toes disappear in the loose sand. He could vaguely see Ryan, a white spot in the dark mass of waves, switching between swimming and floating on his back, not looking back.

And standing there, he knew that for the rest of his life, however long or short it would be, he would never forget that moment. The beach, the heat, Ryan as a distant dot in the dark. He would remember, because for one of the few times in his life, he felt he was exactly where he had always wanted to be, even if that always involved sleepily standing on a beach in the middle of the night, watching Ryan dive under the waves.

It felt oddly surreal and poignant, when in the distance, over the water, there was a sudden flash of light, and a couple seconds later the resonating call of thunder.

He called out something to Ryan, maybe “come back!” or “it’s gonna storm!” knowing he wouldn’t hear him, but Ryan had heard the faint rumble too and slowly started swimming his way back.

It took a couple more flashes of light before Ryan was back in earshot, walking out of the waves, and he was shaking off, his hair dripping, droplets of water running over his torso, smiling and out of breath, yelling “it’s amazing, come over here!”

“It’s gonna rain,” he yelled to an approaching Ryan, eyes on the dark clouds that were rapidly covering up the moon, a strong breeze setting in, ruffling his hair, making Ryan shiver.

“So?” Ryan asked, close by now, dripping all over him with a shit-eating grin “You’re wet already,” and leaned in for a demanding kiss. Greg groaned and returned it, not caring if Ryan’s wet body next to his was soaking him too.

Resurfacing from their kiss, he playfully pushed Ryan down into the sand, and straddled him, asking “You ever had sex on a beach?”

“In England?” Ryan asked, grinning from somewhere under him.

“Bastard,” he said, leaning in for a kiss again, when he felt the first errant drops of drizzling rain on his back. He didn’t get up right away, rubbing himself against Ryan’s naked form, pleased when he felt the beginnings of a hard-on on Ryan. As the rain picked up in pace though, Ryan pushed him off, and rolled him on his back too, saying “look”.

Looking upwards he had the dizzying feeling of being surrounded by a curtain of rain, the waves so close by, and Ryan next to him was closing his eyes, letting the rain fall over his face. He rolled to his side again, shielding Ryan’s naked form from most of it, and tasted raindrops on Ryan’s skin, salty and wet. He said “you think this is some warning from the gods not get it on on a beach?”

Ryan laughed, saying “Aren’t it the Greek ones who were all for this kind of love?”

Greg swallowed, looked away for a second (‘love, he fucking said _love_ ’), and then got up to retrieve Ryan’s shorts and hand them to him.

“What, you’re giving up on the sex on the beach already?” Ryan laughed, and he felt a sudden, clear anger floor him. What the fuck did Ryan think they were doing? They were playing some sort of game, living in some sort of fantasy that would be over as soon as they both went back to their _wives_ for gods sake, and he spoke a chipped “Well, it depends, was it your _wife_ you screwed on a beach - _Pat_? Or was it someone else, Colin maybe?”

Ryan eyed him, an incredulous expression on his face, and scrambled up to his full height, the rain falling between them. He spoke, his voice level “Greg…”

“You know what? Just… fuck. Don’t!”

“What?” Ryan was grabbing his wrist, anger in his voice too, and he shrugged, trying to get it off but Ryan held on hard, pressing for an answer in his sudden change of mood that he didn’t have. Looking at Ryan’s confused expression though, his anger faded as fast as it had come, and he decided to go for something close to the truth.

“There’s two days left Ryan. Two… days, two _fucking_ days!” he yelled, his voiced getting high in emotion.

Ryan looked at him then, a flash of sadness crossing his features. He didn’t know which one of them reached out, but they moved together towards an embrace, hard, their bodies beating together, Ryan’s hand fisting his shirt, while the rain increased in intensity, sheets of it falling down, in their hair, dripping over their face and bodies. Ryan whispered in his ear, reassurances, or maybe confessions or something else all together, he could barely hear it, just nodded into Ryan’s shoulder, burrowing closer.

When he could feel Ryan start to shiver in his arms, he rubbed his hands over his back, trying to warm him up without breaking their contact. Eventually it got so bad he wondered if Ryan was crying, perhaps, but he didn’t raise his eyes to see. Not then. Not in the middle of a beach with rain and coldness and something that was supposed to be so many things.

Eventually they both loosened their grip, and walked back, the wet sand between their toes, plastering their back, in their hair. They took the beach with them.

Back in their room they steamed up the bathroom with a hot shower, still hearing the rain through their half-open window, and then curled up in bed, heated. He was exhausted, drained, but didn’t fall asleep right away. They both lay on their sides, watching the slowly clearing light enter through the window as the rain outside stilled to a light drizzle.

He fell asleep to the feeling of Ryan’s fingers, tracing a gentle pattern, as intricate as the drops of rain moving on the window, over his naked back.

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

They woke up rather late, to a gloomy and overcast day. They had an “English breakfast,” and then walked over the beach together, back to the car. Compared to the day before, the beach was completely deserted, grey and desolate, the wet sand crunching under their feet with every step, some errant seagulls flying through the air. They walked close, the need for contact still there.

They didn’t talk about anything but he felt like they didn’t need to, not anymore. They didn’t have anything left to say. Most people would conclude it with ‘some things are meant to be and some weren’t’, but he knew for a fact that Ryan didn’t believe that ‘que sera’ crap either. The fact was they were both cowards, running away from everything and everyone, themselves the most of all. At least that they had recognised it in each other from the first evening they ever spent together.

They managed the drive back to London in a couple hours now, the weather still dreary and dim, even as they reached the city in what was the beginning of rush hour. Once they drove up the studio’s parking lot, they saw Clive waiting in the lobby for them, looking for all the world like a worried parent.

When they got out and broke out their smiles, hugging Clive for a thanks, Clive whispered “I was afraid you two would have eloped somewhere” and Greg blinked, realising he hadn’t even thought about the possibility of not coming back.

Neither of them would want to miss the taping, it was too important for their careers, but it went beyond that. Maybe they didn’t want to give up their lives. Maybe what brought them together was their mutual pain and once that was erased their need for each other would be as well. Right then, he didn’t care to know.

As they walked inside the studios, Ryan was behind him, Ryan’s hand placed on his shoulder, and he felt the warmth of it sting him.

Clive told them Colin had left already, as had Mike. Tonight would be their last taping of the year, and even Richard looked a little drained. They quickly caught up with Steve and Tony, and while he heard Ryan being purposely vague about where they had been before, he was ushered into costuming.

He didn’t see him again until they all filed onto the stage. After a sound and light check, Clive talked to the audience, and then the cameras started rolling. From the moment where Clive started announcing their names to the last re-runs of scenes, he sat through the taping with a perpetually acted smile. He was fighting the growing feeling of melancholy that hit him whenever he was sitting in-between scenes, looking at the backs of the people on the stage. They had a couple good scenes, mainly the ones he did with Ryan, they worked together very well now, they had their own rhythm, knowing smiles, meaningful glances.

 

It amazed him that after eight days of consecutive fucking, he could still feel as heated, as _desperate_ for Ryan as he did by the time the taping was over.

Observant to tradition though, they all went to a bar together, he listlessly staring into his drink, Ryan occasionally meeting his eyes.

When Clive casually asked them when their flights left the next day he felt like hitting him in the face. It was Ryan who answered, and who apparently had both flight times memorised.

Near the end of the evening it was mainly Steve who wanted to keep on drinking, the rest of them somewhat worn out, and when Ryan excused the both of them he followed without question.

Once in the street, Ryan was up close and personal right away, rubbing him through his pants, sucking on his neck. They needed some sign of what they meant to each other, he understood, and they didn’t even make it back to the hotel. It was as urgent, as forceful as it had been in the beginning, but only now Ryan’s eyes looked at him too deeply, so he looked away.

They stumbled into an alley, paved with cobbles, dark-stone walls on both sides. Ryan pushed him against one, face first, and he unzipped his pants, hands shaking in anticipation. Ryan’s hands were clammy and cold on his back, grazing his stomach, and then on his dick. He sighed at the touch, longing for Ryan, for him to take him and he must have said something to that affect or maybe he didn’t and Ryan just knew, but a moment later Ryan’s dick was near his entrance, and he moved it in, slowly. It burned, the hurt sweet and intense, and he pulled out again, almost all the way to the tip. When he moved again it was faster, harder, the edge of hurt not giving way for pleasure right away, and he liked it, the surge hot and real and Ryan was breathing in his ear, his one arm leaning on the wall to keep them steady.

With Ryan’s next thrust, his dick bumped against the stone of the wall, and he wanted to move but Ryan stopped him, keeping his hands high, forcing him to take it. While he was tense, his entire being flushed, the pain and hotness perfect, he didn’t come, not even when he heard Ryan grunt his name, once, twice, and he was left to support their weight.

When Ryan came back to earth they both pulled up their pants, he painfully over his erection, and proceeded towards the hotel, not speaking.

Once in their room Ryan stripped immediately, and lay down on his back on the bed, watching him. He stripped too, and as he wanted to touch Ryan, pull him in for a kiss perhaps, Ryan stilled his hand, and led it lower. He hesitated. He had only done this once, and he knew Ryan didn’t like it, not as much as he did anyway. But Ryan looked at him with a strange fixation in his eye, and so he pushed Ryan’s long legs open with his one hand, taking the lube with the other.

They did it face to face, moving slowly. He knew he wasn’t hurting Ryan, his dick half-hard again, his eyes half-lidded, and he wondered if he was maybe slowly annihilating something inside himself then, every thrust adding to the loosening of the tension, the terrible ache inside. When he came it was a long, soul-tearing orgasm, and he slumped over Ryan.

He stayed there, his head on Ryan’s chest, and Ryan moved his fingers through his hair, almost hesitantly.

When they fell asleep it was slowly, their body heat between them, warm, secure.

 

\---

Once in his room, he stares out the window. He stretches out, stands on the tips of his toes and looks for the glitter of sea Ryan had claimed to be able to see from there so many years ago until his eyes sting, but doesn’t find it.

Now that he has a room, a place to crash, finally -he’s been awake for too many hours- he finds he can’t, not yet. There’s still too much of Ryan in his mind, memories so close that they seem much more than the carefully constructed fiction they probably are. He wonders if his mind, through the years of loneliness and a purely fucked up existence, changed his memory of what he shared with Ryan to be more beautiful, to fit his perspective of ‘perfect’ even more. He wonders if his idea of what he had always longed for had been there before Ryan was, or if it was based solely on him.

Strangely, he can’t remember a true addiction before Ryan.

He opens the window and stares through it, elbows resting on the windowsill, until the room is flooded with the cold outside chill. Slowly, he starts swaying a little, his eyes closing, and he imagines a warm hand on his shoulder, a breathy whisper in his ear “you can’t sleep?”

He opens his eyes quickly, shaking himself. Truth is, he doesn’t dare to fall asleep. If he does, he knows there will be a comfort somewhere, maybe the in illusion of a lean, warm body next to him in the bed, in the split second where he thinks he hears Ryan’s breathing, in the dreams that are deceivingly real. He doesn’t allow himself to construct another gateway, not when the step away from it will hurt that much more. He wants to hurt now, maybe because he never knew any other way to grieve. Maybe because he’s never consciously grieved for anything before, always opting to dilute the pain by dulling it as well as he could.

Even now his mind is spinning in circles, occupying him with images, sentences, ideas, countless memories of times spent with Ryan, always skipping over the essential one, the memory he’s supposed to be feeling.

 

\---

 

The next morning came around, small white clouds in an otherwise bright blue sky, a mocking sun shining into their room. Ryan put a arm around him before waking up completely, tightening his grip until it was almost painful, and so they laid in the bed a while longer.

“You know I don’t say goodbye,” Ryan mumbled into his neck, and he quietly grunted his approval. When Ryan removed his arm and got up, he squeezed his eyes shut, looking in the direction of the window, fighting with all he had in him to stay quiet.

A while later, he could hear Ryan turning the shower on in the bathroom, and then the sound of a broken curse and the muffled thud of a fist hitting the bathroom wall. He didn’t get up, he knew what Ryan was feeling, knew it perfectly. He only took his glasses from the nightstand and put them on. Checking the clock, he knew they didn’t have time for sex anymore. They missed that by staying so long in bed together without saying a word.

When Ryan came out again, smelling strongly of shampoo and spicy, cheap aftershave he didn’t even try to hide the red, swollen look of his hand, and Greg tried his best not to look at it. Ryan promised him to come back up, as soon as his own room was empty, the key back at the front desk, the cab called. He nodded, easily. When Ryan closed the door behind him it felt final already, and, knowing he had been dreading this same moment for too long now, he suddenly needed to get up, away from the bed that was still warm, still held the heat and smell of the both of them. He got dressed quickly and was on his second cigarette when he heard a soft, single knock on the door.

He answered the door with a sense of apprehension, swallowing against the deep ache that had started to swirl through him. Ryan looked as bad as he felt, hollowed out, a sad expression in his face, tense, his hands shaking slightly as he grasped his upper arms. Ryan didn’t step into the room, maybe he was hesitant to see the bed again too, instead pulled him out into the hallway, closer and closer until their faces were only an inch apart, everything blurry and real and he kissed him, hard and fast, a bruising sort of kiss and when Ryan pulled his hand away it was with a short, pained movement. When he turned around and walked through the hall, not looking back again, Greg stepped back into the room, closed the door and lit another cigarette, shaking, ignoring the tight band that had settled over his chest.

He didn’t know it yet, but they would say many goodbyes after that one. Again and again.

 

 

Part of him had always wished that it had stayed at that, at their one perfect summer in London, at the memories they had between them now, that they both could go back to their families and live life, be content. But it wasn’t that.

It took him six weeks, six weeks of drinking and drugs and sex to the amount that every friend he had was worried, to call Ryan. And when he did do it, slightly high and choking back some tears, it was both the high point of his month and completely anticlimactic. Ryan sounded friendly, kind, told him about his various projects and jobs and friends, and when he put the phone down he was, for the first time perhaps, completely aware of the fact that they would never go back to what they had been.

He flew to L.A. that February; he had practically begged his agent into arranging him a couple gigs down there, and met up with Ryan. A long, comfortable embrace (‘like coming home’) and a half-finished drink later they were running over the street, getting a hotel room together, grunting, pounding into each other, climaxing too fast, too pent-up, so they would do it again, until they were both too sore and spent to move, to think.

His entire time in L.A. was spent either on stage, or in a bedroom with Ryan. They had sex in the park on the second evening, a warm, starry night, and afterwards they laughed again at their own stupidity, just a little.

Mainly they were silent though. Not saying much that touches didn’t do all by themselves.

That time it was Greg who left Ryan, early in the morning to catch his flight, and he didn’t wake him, just pressed a soft kiss to his cheek and left.

By then he had known that it wouldn’t end. It would become shorter, if possible even more painful, more desperate as the years went by and the both of them added sorrows and hurt and lines in their face every time they met. People would tread between them, time would, but a succession of stages would time and time again remind them of a could-be. Through the years, the surroundings would change, but not what brought them together once.

They would never really stop needing.

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

The next four summers they spent taping in London, together.

Colin had become a permanent fixture on the show, and a permanent presence too. Greg never pretended to like him, and Colin never pretended not to know he was lying through his teeth when he cynically claimed nothing mattered, and so they became friends too, eventually. Through mutual desperation.

He had a talk with Colin once, about longing for something that couldn’t be, and Colin had touched his arm, both reassuringly and warning, and said “it’ll crush you Greg,” his eyes serious and soft. He had laughed emptily and said “it already has.”

Most nights Ryan was in his bed with him, occasionally someone else. They had never outgrown games like that as much as grown into them. Making the other jealous, so jealous he came storming through the door at three am to pin the other against the wall, was not an offence, but a sweet confirmation of the power they had over each other. Their sex had grown harder too, no longer soft touches, outreached hands falling short of actually touching. He would have been sad about it, if it wasn’t both the cause and resolution of the vile and sharp anger inside of him, the only reason he didn’t lose it completely.

The one thing that he would never lose was that he understood Ryan, and he knew that now. Ryan never needed a sorry anymore, but a cigarette. Not adoration, but a fuck. Eventually, it stopped mattering that he still, however messed up, _loved_ him.

They broke it off many times. The first a year after their discussion on the beach, in a hotel room. Ryan _screamed_ and pounded things, more aggressive than he had ever seen him before, and his heartbeat shot up at the sight. They had some of the best sex either of them had ever had (“break-up sex”, one of them had muttered, and the other had agreed with a low grunt and even more friction because hell it felt like they were cheating on themselves right then), once against the wall with their pants still half-on and once on the dusty carpet, limbs tangling into each other and spit instead of lube so it goddamn hurt but neither of them minded.

Afterwards they didn’t talk anymore, but they both knew it hadn’t been the end. Oh no.

The second time was on a street in London when they were both drunk off their asses, and he had ended up crying into Clive’s jacket until Ryan had come up from behind and hugged him, breathing an apology and a crude suggestion in his ear. He had blinked away his tears and nodded, eagerly.

The third time was a year after Ryan’s son was born, and he had promised things to a child he would never live up to. Ryan, eyes distant and sad, had said “we can’t, Greg, not anymore…” and he had agreed with him, for once. He had left the room with a terrifying sense of finality that time (his heart beating in his chest, so hard, the sound of blood rushing in his ears) and when Ryan got up from the bed to stop him before he was gone completely, he had thought he would break down and cry. (He never did.) 

After that, there were simply mornings where there was no trace of the night before left besides perhaps a discarded condom. Days where they ignored each other, only to move together again through the night. Months without a sign, a call, anything. But, always, in the end there was the fall back into what they both tried to avoid.

Ryan started smoking even more, and Greg did the occasional drugs with Tony, until Tony went to rehab, and he switched to drinking again. He didn’t even pretend to be happy, and neither did Ryan, and sometimes he felt everything close in around him, every wall and every burning touch and he needed Ryan more than he had ever needed anyone else, but instead he would drink even more, forget as much as he possibly could, because there was nothing else he could do. Not anymore. 

When London ended, when the show moved to the U.S. for good, had been the second time he often wished things had ended there. They had lost their tenderness, but not their lust. Their insight. It still could have been a preciously closed chapter in his mind, a time of wonderful once had.

But of course it didn’t end there either. He followed Ryan, and the show, over the Atlantic, maybe crazy, maybe foolish, he didn’t care. They were still together, sporadically, still fitted together in a way that neither of them ever had felt with anyone else.

They still joked softly, over beers. Still coordinated their cigarette breaks in order to be angry and silent together. Still looked at each other in ways that made his heart clench.

Slowly, through the years, at a pace that was hardly noticeable at the time the tone between them changed. Ryan rarely smiled anymore, if at all. His humor became bitter, his tone tired. The only times he could still make Ryan laugh was recalling some old tale, some old fun. When they were together, neither of them needed to live in the present, and maybe that was why they both avoided and couldn’t stay away from each other.

Where every trace of softness had left them years before, now they would spend hours just lying together, having slow, drawn-out sex, or calmly sleeping in the same bed, their grip on each other loose.

When Whose Line ended, and Ryan left television for good, Greg couldn’t say he’d been surprised. When that also meant that Ryan had left him for good, he didn’t truly realise it until he hadn’t shared a bed with Ryan for over a year and suddenly couldn’t remember what he looked like when he came. What his pillow smelled like. What he said first thing in the morning.

They still talked on the phone, and maybe met in person once or twice, but Ryan leaving Whose Line had been the end for them too. Finally, eventually, everything had watered down to nothing. And it didn’t bother him, not truly. Part of him had expected them to jump in bed together again as soon as he saw Ryan again; they had many years left, after all. Many tries, many fights, many stages.

And then the call came.

 

_“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Ryan had said to him once, before flopping down on the mattress spread-eagle style with a sated sigh and fastening his jeans. He had laughed and breathed into Ryan’s ear “I goddamn hope to be…” before sticking his hand down Ryan’s pants and undoing the button again in a matter-of-fact kind of way._

 

That was the first thing he had thought off when he had heard it. Ryan saying “you’re gonna be the death of me...”

Strange, how a sixteen-year friendship, a heart-stopping, crazy fucked up _love_ , was summed up and erased it the couple minutes it took to receive one phone call.

Two hours later, he was on a flight to London.

 

\---

Eventually, he has fallen asleep right there leaning on the windowsill, or maybe he’s seeing ghosts or maybe he’s crying again because he sees Ryan there, next to him. Looking through the window, telling him he _can_ see the sea with a huge, shit-eating grin.

He just looks at him, soaks him in for a moment. He looks so young again, ridiculously skinny and handsome, glowing in the moonlight, face alight with a bright smile. He almost looses himself in the fantasy, the idea of perfection, a story without an end. He reaches for Ryan, wants to touch his face, to hold him, fuck him, for one last time, always one last time…

Then the image fades, and real life comes tumbling back, flashes of the last forty-eight hours, the sea, the cold, throwing away the cigarettes, driving out there, the tears on Josie’s face, the colored umbrella’s, the streets in London, the subway, the plane, the phone call. Always back to the phone call. And the words. 

It had been Colin, of course. After all, it was fitting. Colin, the one who called to tell it to him personally. Colin, the one who was unashamedly crying on the phone, barely able to get the words past his lips.

He knows it’s the truth though. Eyeing Ryan, the vision of Ryan, the sharp-edged face etched in his mind, he knows.

“You died.” he speaks, almost as surprised at the sudden clarity of the memory as he is at the fact that he’s saying it.

Truth is, he’s angry. He is utterly, completely angry at what life did to them both, at all the chances they were too fucking cowardly too take, at all the time they could have had but didn’t, and last of all at Ryan, for being just like him, for being too much. For being _there_ even, although he knows he’s just imagining things. He was never one to believe in much of anything. But it doesn’t stop him to yell at Ryan.

“You died! You… you fucking died.” his voice breaks down now, and it’s Ryan, looking amused, who fills out the last of the blank. “Of lung cancer, yeah.”

Colin had added, in between his bitter, breathless silence “he didn’t tell me either Greg.” But of course that wasn’t enough. He knew why Ryan hadn’t told Colin, Colin would have cried and held him and Ryan was never one to say goodbye. But Greg, he could have… given him whatever he needed. Always. Ryan had known that, he must have known... And now he wasn’t there to need anything anymore.

“We fucked it up.” He finally, silently admits to the figure of Ryan, a knot in his chest loosening, a hitch breaking free, but keeping his head up determined, he’s willing to face it now, all of it. And then Ryan smiles at him, a last, bright, beautiful smile, and contradicts him. “No we didn’t.”

And he blinks and he’s gone, he’s just staring out the window, catching the tiniest glitter of water in the distance. He’s cold, shivering all over, and so he closes the window, and steps back to lie on the bed.

He sees them again, running from the icy cold rain into a warm hotel room. Ryan pressing a small kiss on his nose. Words on his lips he never quite said, but it was close, he could see it in his eyes. 

Laughing, together on a stage, the world consisting of nothing but that very moment, created just for the both of them, with a fast, flickering trace of glee in Ryan’s eyes and a warm tension in his stomach. 

Drinking beers, Ryan’s long fingers slowly curling over a glass and wiping away the condensation, with stale tasting kisses later and a hang-over chased away by Ryan’s hand on his back and gentle, absent-minded mid-night touches.

Smoking, smoke curling towards the ceiling and between them; (‘we all need our poison’) old, smoked cigarettes in ashtrays, ashes on pillows, on Ryan’s stomach, caught in his eyelashes. 

Fucking, of course fucking, outside on green, wiry grass, against cold, dirty walls, in alleys with puddles and parks with _sunshine_ and hotel rooms, always uniform hotel rooms with white pillows (Ryan’s curly hair against a white pillow, the arch of his thigh just covered by a sheet, street lights at night making his skin look transparent, the need to touch him to make _sure_ ).

Slowly, a small, tender smile spreads over his face and, already half asleep, he looks towards the window (one last time, always…) and mumbles “Goodbye Ryan.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
